One of the defining aspects of the 2014 cinematic year has
been the relative success of films targeting major religious groups,
specifically Christians. Sure the trend
has died off in the later half of the year (and I expect today’s subject to be
no different,) but before summer even hit we had Noah open to over 40 million,
Son of God make 60 million despite being made out of footage from an already
aired TV series, and Heaven is for Real make over eight times it’s production
budget. Exodus: Gods and Kings is, at
least to some extent, trying to profit off of this same trend in the box office; but I seriously doubt that this movie has the
God power to please religious audiences or the entertainment value to please
anybody else.
The attempt here is to try and wrangle the church group
crowds that made Noah such a surprise success and also bring in the male
action/fantasy fans who enjoy director Ridley Scott’s past action movies like
Gladiator and Blade Runner. But the
result is neither an interesting action adventure or any kind of faith affirming. Add in to that Scott’s own third vision for
the film, which is much more personal and what you get is one confused mess of
an epic.
This nothing-script has some serious problems, most of which
probably stem from the multiple authors and rewrites. The movie is very vague and bland with a main
conflict that’s difficult to pinpoint. Is
it about Moses’ relationship with God? A
tragedy about Ramses and his stubbornness?
About God’s vengeance on Ramses?
Well really it’s about all of those things and simultaneously none of
those things. “Exodus” goes in so many
directions that it might as well not have gone nowhere. The thing has no focus.
The spectacle of the film is actually relatively
entertaining, but it’s not nearly entertaining enough to get an audience
through a nearly three hour runtime and such an obnoxious plodding
storyline. Are the CGI riddled action
sequences fun? Sure they are, but this
isn’t 300; we have to actually care about the plot to get into the action.
Ridley Scott used to be known as a great director, but in
recent years his output of awful movies has exceeded his output of good movies
by a solid margin. This guy hasn’t made
a great movie in well over a decade, and I’ve begun to cringe whenever I see
his name above a title. The guy who
directed Gladiator should know better than this. Either Mister Scott has
stopped giving a crap about the movies he’s making or he’s slowly going insane,
and as someone who has seen The Counselor I think that he should probably be
locked in an insane asylum.
Honestly Exodus: Gods and Kings isn’t the worst movie ever,
but it’s one of the worst to come out recently; and, more importantly, it’s a
lot worse then it’s closest cinematic contemporary, Darren Aronofsky’s
Noah. If you have a hankering to watch a
movie based on Moses and the plagues of Egypt then go watch Prince of Egypt
or The Ten Commandments, because there is probably the worst movie based on
this portion of the Bible I’ve ever seen.
Thanks for reading! Check back later for more super-awesome movie stuffs including a new Best of the Rest!
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