Film Review: Exodus: Gods and Kings

For thousands of years, the Book of Exodus has stood as a awe-inspiring account showing how Moses, united with God's power, liberated the Jews from slavery, and set them on the path to form their own nation. It's always been an inspiring tale of faith, power, and liberation. Plus, the characters have always been compelling archetypes; Moses, much like Maximus in Gladiator, is a man who serves his country, is banished, but comes back with a vengeance. Ramesses, much like Commodus in Gladiator, is a man whose ego is so bloated, he is driven to betray his most loyal followers. Put the two together, and you have a dynamic, intense character-driven conflict, which touches on timeless themes of loyalty, the nature of power, and the nature of faith.

Exodus: Gods and Kings promises an epic, visually-lush retelling of these classic characters and events. It bears something in common with Ridley Scott's earlier work with Gladiator, especially in regards to the characters. However, as it is with Kingdom of Heaven's theatrical cut and 2010's Robin Hood, the experience of Exodus is not always perfect.

The film definitely delivers on the visual front: each scene is laden with beautiful landscapes, highly-detailed sets and props, and lavish visual effects. There is one major battle scene in the beginning, which is fairly satisfying. After a long stretch of slower-paced drama, the ten plagues are shown as a montage of widespread chaos. It's portrayed less as a direct action of God, and more as a chain reaction of nature, with God's oversight; some audiences won't like this depiction, but I personally loved it. The passover scene is appropriately somber. When the exodus finally happens, the famous Red Sea scene offers a fantastic vision of a giant wall of water crashing over the Egyptian army, and it is quite the impressive sight.
Unfortunately, in-between all these exciting scenes, the film slows down drastically to a crawl, wadding through character-driven drama. It makes the pacing really herky-jerky, and if you don't care for the lead characters, then the film will be a total bore.

As it is, I found the characters to be decent enough. I could appreciate the conflict between Moses and Ramesses, which has a lot of push and pull that keeps the plot moving through its projected course. What might make the story iffy, however, is the details and how they compare to the source material. Moses is presented as a man who "wrestles with God," rather than simply doing God's bidding or wielding God's power. God appears as a character, and it's not even clear if He's meant to be taken literally or as a figment of Moses' imagination. God's goal throughout is to upstage everybody else, to humble them. It's in line with the Old Testament view of things, but on-screen, it feels off, because God's relationship with Moses is purposefully strained. Bible literalists will find this movie distasteful, thanks to the unconventional way the characters and events are handled.

Fortunately, the film looks splendid, with fantastic photography and editing. Acting is great: I thoroughly appreciated Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton as the two leads, I loved Maria Valverde, and everybody else is not bad. Writing is pretty bad; most dialogue is blunt, unrefined, and it feels oddly modernized. This production uses spectacular sets, props, costumes, and special effects. The music score is really beautiful too.

Despite the quality of the production, the quality performances, and the visual grandeur, the film has messy pacing and messy content that won't sit well with most viewers. I personally feel that the film has merit, and deviations from the Bible don't bother me that much, but it does feel a little off, and I'd love to see if a director's cut will rectify these problems the way it did with Kingdom of Heaven. As it is, anybody looking for a straight biblical adaptation should stick with Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Rent this only if you're a fan of historical epics, and you're not too hung up over biblical accuracy.

3.5/5 (Experience: Average | Content: Marginal | Film: Very Good)

Film Review: Son of God (2014)

There are a few caveats to this review.  First of all, I didn't initially realize that this film was a spinoff of The Bible miniseries from the History channel.  It's one of those TV shows I was meaning to check out, but haven't found the time to, and then mixed reviews held me back.  Secondly, I must admit that I'm probably not well-versed enough in the good book or theology in general to judge every single nuance of this film.

All that being said, I expected this film to be worse, given some of the reviews I've read.  Some folks have written this off as a bore, but I found myself pretty well-engaged in the film.  It runs pretty briskly, breezing through one scene after another to cover all of Jesus' life in a short couple of hours.  There are bursts of melodrama, violence, political intrigue, and an overall sense of wonder at times.  The film plays out in a straight and earnest fashion.

As far as the content goes, it's going to be a hit-and-a-miss.  The film generally strings all the major events from the New Testament into some kind of narrative, although it's never clear where Jesus and his apostles are going from one minute to the next, and why.  It's like they just wander around and do stuff, and when they get to where they're going, it's like, "hey, it's time for such-and-such a scene." So you see many of the major events one-after-another, but on a thin thread of a plot.  Characters act the part, but nothing much is revealed about their deepest motivations or feelings, so they come off as one-dimensional caricatures.

The biggest issue with the film, however, are the artistic liberties taken with the source material.  It's not word-for-word faithful to the Bible, which is understandable, since the film would have probably droned on for hours if it was.  However, the film can be nit-picked for getting certain facts wrong:  the manner in which Jesus resurrects Lazarus differs from what's in the Bible, Jesus causing a ruckus in the temple occurs way sooner than it should have, Peter denouncing Jesus thrice happens later than it should have, and so on.  The film throws in more scenes with Pilate's wife, for no apparent reason.  The biggest omission, however, is the absence of the most important villain:  Satan.  He's nowhere to be seen at all.  I only learned later that these scenes were actually cut, because of concerns that Satan looked too much like President Obama.  Ugh, really? Well, fine, whatever.  Because of all that, Jesus only has to put up with evil people in this movie; the film does a fine job of underscoring the evil of human beings at certain times, but without the Devil tempting and testing Christ (and subverting humanity), some important lessons and themes are cut out (including the biggest one of them all:  good triumphing over evil).

So what's left? The good news is that there are still a few solid messages in the film that Christians can relate to.  Faith in Jesus is the biggest theme emphasized, and that's enough reason for many folks to love the film.  I think the movie also does a fine and dandy job of highlighting the oppression and savagery of the era (for the film has its violent parts), which gives His sacrifice a bit more weight.

The film is crafted with okay photography and editing.  Acting is nothing to scream about; Diogo Morgado looks the part and does his best to be warm and nice, but the man has no real commanding presence.  Greg Hicks plays a total jerk as Pilate, for better or for worse.  All the apostles are alright.  I hated the writing in this film; most lines have been warped around to the point where they lost their impact (seriously, lines like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" is delivered as "I’ll give my stone to the first man who tells me that he has never sinned," and it just doesn't sound good).  Most lines are over-simplified to the point of losing any sense of elegance; the whole mustard seed parable was truncated so much, I found it laughable and stupid.  Even the Lord's Prayer had its last line cut off, further distancing the film from the real villain of "evil." The film's sets, props, and costumes are great.  Special effects are bad.  Music sounds like more of the same.

It's a straight dramatization of the key events of Jesus' story, and it gets some things right and some things wrong.  Experts can probably nit-pick on many different issues, while novices may find the film enlightening.  Christians in general may get a kick out of it regardless.  If you're a fan of The Bible miniseries already, then the film is likely just an extended episode for you.  As it is though, I personally value The Passion of the Christ the most, because it covers a lot of similar ground with more realism, more attention to detail, and more power.  Son of God is a fine and dandy depiction, but little more.

3/5 (Entertainment:  Pretty Good | Content:  Average | Film:  Average)