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| Christian Bale when he was in the NWA |
I really had no expectations when I decided to sit down and watch Exodus: Gods and Kings, the latest loud, nonsensical film from aging filmmaker Ridley Scott. Let me make it clear from the get go: I used to be a huge Ridley Scott fan. He's made masterpieces like Blade Runner and Alien, and Gladiator was the movie that made me want to start acting. So it makes me really kind of sad to see him Exodus: Gods and Kings, which is a stupid title, and should have been titled Excrement: Farts and Poops. I'm a comedian.
We begin with the tale of Moses (Christian Bale) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton), two young men in Egypt who have been close friends since they were children. Ramses is the heir to the throne as pharoah, a title currently held by his father Seti (John Toturro). So when Moses goes to a town to oversee something, and speaks to Gandhi...err.. Nun (Ben Kingsley), he finds out he is Hebrew, and is then banished from the kingdom, when one of Ramses allies named Hegep (Ben Mendelsohn) tells him of this. And so begins the story that has the first act doing a sub par knockoff of Gladiator and the other two acts functioning as a fart cannon to your senses.
A lot was made of the fact that the cast is predominantly white, but honestly who cares? Christian Bale, who is arguably one of the best actors alive, and Joel Edgerton give fine performances in the lead roles. Same with pretty much the entire cast. They are all good actors and don't give you any reason to question why they were cast. Except for Sigourney Weaver, who has like three lines in the whole movie, and Aaron Paul, whose character Joshua is nothing more than a character inserted to ask plot forwarding questions the audience is probably thinking like "But how come Moses?" It's truly riveting stuff that shows why he has three Emmy awards. Just kidding. It explains why he agreed to do Need For Speed.
It's not to say that Ridley doesn't try to make them look more Middle Eastern. Little things like dirtying them up when they are outside to give the appearance of darker skin are tactics that he assumed people wouldn't catch because they'd be too busy trying to get refunds for this turd sandwich. But I caught it all Ridley. I caught everything. Because my crippling loneliness wouldn't allow me to look away from the screen.
Ultimately, Exodus: Gods and Kings does a lot more wrong than it could possibly do right. A muddled plot, weak character motivations, sloppy pacing, dialogue that even the Bible would have edited out and a third act so bad that it made me laugh harder than anything so far this year. Audible, loud, angry laughter at my laptop til I wrote this review.
Grade: D-
