Exodus: Gods and Kings Review

Howdy ladies and gents, even though 2014 is over and I’ve already given you my top 10 films and my end of year review, I still have one more film review to give you before we transition into 2015 and it comes in the form of Exodus: Gods and Kings. Now this is a film I was actually going to give a miss because a lack of interest however near the time of release I heard some good things about the film so I decided to give it a chance. I watched it last night and now I’m ready to pass judgement.

The story, can be described as the following:

“Epic adventure Exodus: Gods and Kings is the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 600,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.”

I thought the story had some interesting updates to the classic tale but overall it just came across as bit dull. From the beginning you are meant to connect with Moses and Ramesses so that you can understand their goals in life, but the film doesn’t give you any time to know who these people are, what kind of connection they have and why we should care. You also don’t care for Moses’ mission to become a leader who has to safe his people because he does nothing significant to be of interest and it doesn’t help that his relationship with god is strained and complicated. I don’t know, all the time I was watching the film I was just comparing it to the original story and The Prince of Egypt and wondered, “Why was this changed?”, “Why did this character do that?” “Who is this random person?” All of the changes in the film felt unnecessary, strange and done just for the sake of change rather than having a good reason for it.

When it comes to the cast there were performances that ranged from fine to over-the-top to dull. In truth the only person that mattered was Christian Bale as Moses. Moses is the main character, however he isn’t that likeable, he has no great heroic or leader-like qualities and he has no personality either. He’s not a relatable protagonist and when he’s in trouble or is struggling you don’t care because he’s just a bit meh. Bale seems like the only person actually trying to put on a show in this film. Joel Edgerton as Ramesses II, my god, what a bore. This is not the cool character from the Dreamworks animation, instead what we have here is a spoilt brat who has no redeeming features, is not relatable and seems to have a stick up his ass all the time. Edgerton is better actor than this and I feel like this is the worst film I’ve seen him in. John Turturro as Seti I was actually alright, after seeing the horrible performances in Michael Bay’s Transformers films, he was very reserved, calm and quite nice. Aaron Paul as Joshua, it was a bit bizarre to see Paul in a film like this, he was alright but incredibly wasted. Ben Kingsley was decent as Nun but he wasn’t in the film enough to be that relevant. Ben Mendelsohn was invisible as Hegep. Sigourney Weaver as Tuya, all I can say is what a waste of a role. Weaver is just there to stand around and say a few lines, her character could have been played by anyone or written out of the film entirely and it would not have made any difference to the story. What a waste. María Valverde was okay as Zipporah, but she barely had enough screen time to be a fully developed character and whenever she was around she was boring as hell.

The presentation was probably the best thing to come out this film. The CGI is very detailed, realistic, epic and used to great effect in the huge action sequences. The music by Alberto Iglesias is pretty good too, I did like the way it had a certain level of epicness and drama to it.

In conclusion Exodus: Gods and Kings is serviceable film but an unnecessary one. For all of its grand visual flair it doesn’t have a story that’s interesting or engaging enough for me to care. The characters are dull and forgettable, the pacing is slow and there are chucks of details in the story that get completely omitted for no reason.

Rating: 5/10

So what did you think of Exodus: Gods and Kings? Did you like it, hate it or thought it was alright? Also how do you feel it compares to the original source material? Whatever your thoughts are be sure to leave them in the comments section below and I’ll see ya in the new year! Laters! 😀