EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS

Exodus: Gods and Kings is the telling of the famous story of Moses and the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian rule. It's also a remake of a Charleton Heston classic so the makers of the film were pretty gutsy to even attempt to tackle this film, even though some would say that this film is due for a remake. Luckily for this movie, it has a lot of talent to back this massive undertaking including Christian Bale, Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton and John Turturro.

Let me start by saying that I did like a lot of this movie. The special effects, especially the scene with the plagues, are pretty intense and the way Moses is portrayed by Bale is pretty good for the first half of the film. It syncs up with the source material pretty well and though Bale might not look the part(I'll get to that in a minute), he gives an unseen yet accurate portrayal of the ex-general's demeanor. Joel Edgerton also does a good job as Ramesses in this. His arrogant yet somewhat insecure nature plays very close to the way one would assume he must have been according to the story. In fact, the relationship between Ramesses and Moses through the first act of the film is perhaps the best part of the movie.

I've said a lot of good things about this movie regarding the first half and with good reason because unfortunately, all of this movie's many problems show up in the second and third acts. The core of the movie's problems come from poor writing. There are a lot of changes made to the original Bible story and albeit they are tiny changes and the intent behind them is to try to make a more interesting story and I understand the want to make it more action packed, but the changes that they made weaken some of the characters and undercut the power in the whole story in general. For instance, Moses carries an Egyptian sword with him throughout the movie instead of his famous staff, sure the sword looks cool and it makes Moses look pretty gangsta when he pulls it out on people but the depth of story and the overall strength of Moses' character are lost because of it. It's changes like these that weaken the narrative of the story and later provide problems in keeping the movie's tone correct. Now to address the elephant in the room, the casting in this movie is absolutely ludicrous. All the extras in the movie are tan and brown skinned people who look indigenous to the Egyptian setting, but the lead roles are all the whitest white people that there are in Hollywood! Christian Bale, Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Paul, and Ben Mendelshon are all in this and seeing their faces in contrast to everyone else in this movie is just so jarring that in every beat of dramatic tension I kept asking myself, "why are they SOOO white?!" Even the little kid they get to represent God in this is just the whitest British kid ever and I'm sorry, but it just took me out of the movie! I would have loved to see someone like Dominic Cooper in this or Faran Tahir or ANYBODY slightly brown to bring a little realism to the film.

Overall, even though I did like some parts of the film, ultimately I can't really in good conscience recommend anyone rush out to see it especially with this winter being packed so tightly with better films. Exodus: Gods and Kings gets a 2...out of 5.