Exodus - Dei e re

I have never written a review in IMDb. This is my first time. Why? Because the movie hasn't been released in USA yet, and I just watched in India. Seeing just 5 reviews, I wanted to give mine too.

What's up with Hollywood? Other than spectacular visuals and 3-D, they don't seem to care enough about anything else. In Exodus, by the famed director Ridley Scott, he surpassed many elements in visual effects. I have never ever seen so detailed visuals of ancient buildings, slums of slaves, and huge ocean waves and what not. 3-D adds a lot of pleasure in viewing such effects.

That's it! There is nothing more that I could appreciate. It feels very empty. No emotions at all. Acting by Christian Bale is quite alright, but it is nothing special. Some scenes are memorable. But the lack of good writing, script, and no contribution from other actors diminish the effect of Bale as well. It is hard to imagine the same guy directed Gladiator (I haven't seen Aliens and blade runner). But there is everything missing in Exodus that made Gladiator a hit.

At many places, it is boring, even if the cinematography and visual effects are great. In the beginning, you would feel as if Ridley took you to the ancient Egyptian world, just because of the small details shown in the effects. However, any interest or so will end in next 10 minutes or so, when the story starts lacking.

So, my question remains. What's up with Hollywood? Is this much technology and huge funding to such directors destroying the creativity. Why no body cares about character building and good script? At one level, it feels extremely sad that with this budget and this talent in technology, even a slight efforts and honesty towards script, story, and dialogue can take such movies to a masterpiece level. But...no! "We are going to earn a lot of money. You are going to enjoy watching the magnificent sequence of millions of frog jumping in ancient buildings. Call it even?" Really?

Exodus is yet another big budget Hollywood movie, the other being Noah, to be based on a biblical story. This time, it is about Moses.

Christian Bale stars as Moses, who I believe was a good choice for the role and did pretty well. Can't say the same for Ramses, the evil Pharaoh. Joel Edgerton wasn't bad per say, but he didn't give this bad evil-ish vibe that I wish was present. The movie's writing is at fault here too.

The second half of the movie, starting from the plagues till the end, was great. I loved the plagues and their presentation, they were thrilling and frightening. Would have been even better if there was some breathing room given to them and if there was more suspense created, but oh well. The finale was again Epic, with the red sea rushing back and all. Being a Ridley Scott film, you can surely expect a visual spectacle, and this movie certainly had many. Beautiful views of Egypt, epic scope, great overhead shots, great cinematography all in all.

The CGI was mostly great. Egypt was beautifully realized and we get to feel its grandness. There were a few instances where green screen use was apparent. Soundtrack was decent, but I was kinda disappointed by it. Was hoping to have at least one great track that really gets you going.

Now, the movie had it fair share of flaws. The first half or so got slow pretty soon after the epic opening battle and kinda got boring. The personal stuff, aside from Moses and Ramses conflict, wasn't interesting and bogged down the movie. Also, a child messenger representing God and all the talks that followed was really underwhelming. Would have been better if it was just a voice or something, they could have used Liam Neeson's voice. But my biggest complaint with the movie is that how anti-climatic the quintessential moment was, and I'm of course talking about the splitting of the Red sea. I was in so much anticipation about finally seeing that moment realized perfectly thanks to modern CGI and with Ridley Scott at helm, only to be extremely disappointed by seeing it reduced to nothing but a steady receding of the water. WTF Ridley Scott. I get that they were going for a more realistic approach or whatever, but CMON, somethings aren't meant to be changed/meddled with.

Overall, even with the flaws, I still did like the movie. Don't hesitate to watch it because of the hate it got as majority of it is from extreme religious people or extreme atheists. Just go in with an open mind and you might enjoy it. If nothing else, you can't deny the grandeur and epicness of it.

7.8/10

It has become somewhat fashionable to dismiss Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments because of the arcane Victorian era dialog. But I have to say that Ridley Scott's version of Exodus while technically proficient will never become the Passover viewing treat that DeMille's film has become.

Cousins Moses and Ramses are friends and rivals for the affections of the Pharoah who is Ramses dad. But when it is discovered that Moses is actually the son of Hebrew slaves that his mother Pharoah's sister drew him out of the Nile the succession of the Pharoah's line is secure.

What's not so secure is the kingdom itself as the Hebrews who came over as a family of 13 kids several centuries earlier now are in the thousands and are slaves and they ain't happy about it. In the funny way things work out in life, the adopted Egyptian prince is in fact the promised leader who is going to lead them back from whence they came which is Canaan.

In DeMille's version the dialog may be arcane, but it is also uplifting and inspiring and delivered by the ultimate DeMille leading man Charlton Heston. Yul Brynner as Ramses in that version was the arrogant Pharoah enjoying all his princely prerogatives. They made an evenly matched pair of foes and with them scrapping over Anne Baxter the conflict got personal as well as religious.

Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses just don't give you people you can identify with.

DeMille was always good with crowds. Note how uplifting the liberation of the Hebrews is in his film. Also the small little vignettes of the various people in the crowd. They are a family/nation in his version. All they are is in Scott's version lumpen proletariat.

Whose idea was it to have the voice of God be that of a petulant child? Instead of the pyrotechnical wizardry of DeMille the Ten Commandments are given almost matter of factly by a kid to Christian Bale.

We've gone beyond Cecil B. DeMille in the art of film making. But there a things in his craft that he was the top, far and above anyone else. Not even a Ridley Scott should try.

It's not any one thing especially that is particularly so wrong with Exodus: Gods and Kings, but an overall gloom and doom that befalls the film, the deadly serious tone, that keeps it from reaching to a higher plain of epic-filmmaking existence. Scott takes this tale SO seriously, indeed, that he has things like a stern-faced child as the voice of the "I Am". Which is fine, except that there is nary a moment of any kind of other emotion from this child actor throughout than of whining. At least when Scorsese had a child as a 'God'-like being in Last Temptation of Christ it was for a shorter period of time, and for a more specific purpose. If there was a point to be made about this child as a "God" - perhaps as his way of criticizing religion as the God of the Old Testament being a brutal eight year-old - it could have had an impact... if the rest of the film around it wasn't so thuddeningly dull.

Why is this so dull? When you have this much money at your disposal, you got to try to make as much of a HUMAN connection, to make the drama really stand out (this was something another filmmaker in 2014, Aronofsky with Noah, actually understood and really made palpable and intense amid the spectacle). Or, go the other way into broad and campy material. Scott is just there to shoot a lot of this much the way he did Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood - in other words, substitute out the pyramids with colisseums, or castles, or other things, and you'd have similar hyper-kinetic action (sometimes but not always too fast) and actors who are well-trained and versed and there to do the work, but not much more.

Actually, those other films, even Robin Hood, would be preferable to sit through again than Exodus. There's just no joy or excitement to the filmmaking; the closest part where it really gets engaging and exciting and full of 'Wow' material are the plagues. Those work well, just as eye-candy. People in the cast like Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, as Moses and Ramses respectively, are giving it their all - or as much as the script is asking them too, which is pretty similar relatively scene to scene (Ramses rarely is anything other than a "God"-type d***head). But other actors are completely wasted amid the scenery and effects: Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Paul, Ben Kingsley, they're only there to look on with awe and "huh" moments, or deliver exposition glumly. Ewen Bremmer, of all actors, as the sort of court-jester-summarizer of the plagues steals the show far as supporting players go.

It's all just flat, monotonous story-telling, and for all of those moments - that mid-section with the plagues - that are visually striking and cool-looking, there's still not much investment with the characters. We know how this will play out, but what do Scott and his screenwriters do to add anything extra aside from that been-there-done-that "lived-in" dirty quality? Uh... extra violence (albeit just up to the line of R-rated)? An opening battle? For all of the intensity of the two main actors, and the tremendous special effects, it's practically wasted on a story that is 90 minutes shorter than DeMille's 1956 Ten Commandments, feels long and sluggishly paced - this despite the fact that certain other characters who could add some human dimension (like Moses' wife) are underdeveloped and under-utilized. Just put the actor there, prop-like, shoot, go on with the next scene.

Where's a good 'Golden Calf' sequence when you really need one?

This is a well known story and I have also seen the '56 movie 'The Ten Commandments'. So in this film could not foresee the modification, but it did in a slight manner like the later 'Noah' movie. The best part was the visuals, the graphics were so good, hard to resist the pleasure if you are vfx geek like me. That's the reason I love modern movie, especially remake of a classic like 'King Kong'. The problem in this flick was lie in the story telling.

As we know, Ridley Scott is an excellent narrator, but this movie was too short even though it ran 150 minutes. I felt it was just a brief, I mean there were no details or depth in the important scenes. You will know what I'm saying if you had watched '56 movie I mentioned in a above paragraph. That's drawback for the first timers at a same time advantage for not to fall in boredom for those who have already seen other versions. Christian Bale, awesome; Joel Edgerton, good; Ben Kingsley, never required; Aaron Paul, totally waste.

Overall, not cleverly stablised in the scenes that are very important, especially the final one about ten commandments should have been extended a little bit with a moral message. If it was a Peter Jackson movie, definitely it would have been a trilogy with an aggregated time of over 500 minutes. This movie was an entertainer like I enjoyed it than the message deliverer. Must be watched for the amusement and for the pleasure in updating technical aspect of the narration rather than inspiration.

7.5/10