Exodus: Gods and Kings

Before I begin my review of Exodus: Gods and Kings, I need to explain why the release dates for my blogs turned all topsy-turvy this week.

I spent last weekend at an Army Reserve base in Cape Coral, Florida, and that pretty much smashed my schedule against the wall. This comes as something of an embarrassment, given my recent advice at Darkwana.blogspot.com, where I stressed the importance of a strict schedule for your blogs.

Expect my blogs to suffer, for the remainder of this week, a shuffling of release dates. This movie review, for example, should’ve appeared here yesterday, and a new post ought to have arrived today at martinwolt.blogspot.com.

Everything ought to return to its usual position next week.

Let’s start with the 800-pound gorilla in the living room. Yes, Exodus: Gods and Kings takes place in pharaonic Egypt, yet, if I felt compelled to describe its cast in terms of ice cream flavors, I would describe it as vanilla with vanilla swirl.

I think I spotted three black characters (I won’t call them African-American because . . . well, because they stood in pharaonic Egypt) in the background. I felt as if I had won a game of Where’s Waldo.

I refuse to get hung up this issue, mostly because everyone else feels especially hung up on it, so the subject appears more than covered. You can find a limitless collection of opinions on this subject online. Have at it.

I want to discuss the movie and not the color of the actors and actresses it contained.

Let’s enjoy our dessert first and review the good news.

A lot of creativity went into this film. The filmmakers produced several scenes that didn’t work at all, but they never felt lazy. You can’t create trial without error, and I like it when Hollywood takes chances.

I like that much of this movie remains a mystery. The audience walks away unsure if anything mystical really happened (think Troy). Did the plagues result from divine intervention or just an unlikely series of bizarre events?

Did Moses really talk to God, or did he just suffer delusions born of guilt and released via a head injury?

What difference would it make either way? Exodus stars Moses, not God. Anyone can serve as Moses’s mentor, even a delusion (think Ratatouille).

The movie offers gorgeous scenery, as well.

It’s time for vegetables. Bad news: This movies possesses a serious problem with its pace. It draws out scenes it could otherwise skip, and skips or rushes scenes that would’ve allowed for better character development.

I understand, as a minimalist, the challenge of concise writing and character development. It proved a challenge for the writers of Exodus and resulted in sudden, explosive changes between out two main characters that often jarred its audience.

Moses, for an unacceptably large portion of the movie, secretly trains the Hebrews for a rebellion (that never comes to pass) outside, in broad daylight, at some remote location, which begs questions such as “Couldn’t the Hebrews just walk away at any point? Nobody seems to keep an eye on them, or notice when they leave, or notice that they have weapons, or care what they do with all this free time that feels at odds with their identification as slaves.”

If I compare Exodus to the movie The Ten Commandments, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in the female characters.

The actresses who played the fully developed, female characters in Commandments (Moses’s wife, birthmother, adoptive mother, and Nefertari) gave wonderful performances. Exodus failed in this regard.

The blame shouldn’t rest with the actresses. The filmmakers give them little with which to work. Each actress repeats a couple lines and dose little else.

I discover a challenge in the recommendation of this movie, mostly because I remain uncertain of its audience, the people to whom I ought to recommend it.

Exodus seeks a rare audience, one that enjoys religious stories but won’t protest when such a movie deviates dramatically from its source material.

It often seems an action movie in the making, but never delivers the action.
It offers a Bible story that doesn’t follow the Bible, even portrays God as a childish bully.
The dialogue sounds philosophical, but the premise never reaches deeper than “slavery’s wrong.”
The movie often attempt romance, but fails in this regard, due to a lack of character development in Moses’s wife and the rush between their first meeting and subsequent marriage. Heck, the cartoon movie, The Price of Egypt, managed to rush this successfully with a simple, song-filled montage.

The subject of Moses’s marriage calls attention to yet another issue with this movie. Moses’s wife acts as only a prop (the other female characters serve as mere plot devices) who plays the boring role of the poor wife left at home to worry while her husband goes out and saves the day.

I understand that this acts as a metaphor for the spouses of soldiers sent overseas, and perhaps I would appreciate that more if I discovered myself in the shoes of such a soldier or spouse.
It would seem a nice change if, just once (and I understand this opportunity didn’t arise in the story of Exodus), we saw the husband wait and worry while the wife went off to battle.

I cannot identify which audience Exodus targets and thus cannot place myself in that audience’s shoes to decide whether or not to recommend this movie to them.

I can offer that Exodus proves an interesting movie to study for any inspiring filmmaker.
That said, its pace proves so tone-deaf that the average moviegoer ought to catch it on video, where they can enjoy some distraction where needed.