Exodus: Gods And Kings arrives amidst a lot of baggage. There’s the well-founded anger over the “white washing” of the cast (white actors cast in most of the lead roles instead of more appropriately Middle Eastern actors), the spotty quality of Ridley Scott’s most recent output, and the enormous shadow of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. Then consider the seemingly fickle nature of the “faith-based” audience which, when they turn out in support of a film (The Passion Of The Christ) can generate huge numbers, but when they don’t embrace a title (Nic Cage’s Left Behind), the film can become a movie with literally no audience. A movie made for no one. But never fear. Most of that baggage is only being discussed amongst the insular film community. 20th Century Fox knows this, and they can’t afford to make a giant Biblical epic without an audience in mind, so they made sure to hit all four quadrants.
Despite the fact that casting black or middle eastern actors could have been the most interesting element of this entire film, and in spite of Scott’s own insensitivities about the subject, Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Rameses do a fine job and generate a fair amount of chemistry and tension between them. Several other casting choices feel more than a little misguided. What was John Turturro doing playing the Pharoah? What was Sigourney Weaver doing playing Rameses’ mother? What was Aaron Paul doing playing Joshua? Not only do none of these actors disappear into their roles in the slightest, but none of their roles have much import on the proceedings at all. And while Turturro and Weaver more or less disappear after the first act, Paul gets to stand around on the sidelines for the second half of the film and rarely say or do anything at all. Despite a cast of thousands, Exodus ends up being largely a two man show.
Beyond the chemistry of the leads, there are a few other elements of note worth highlighting from Exodus. Though, in so many ways, this film is exactly what I expected it to be. A 2014 studio epic of this scale is bound to be filled with visual spectacle, and morphed into far more of an action movie than DeMille’s take or even Disney’s take on this material. And in most senses, Exodus played exactly within that safety zone. But one element I did find fresh was Scott’s seeming reliance on real human beings, horses, chariots, and the like, harkening back to old Hollywood with the modern day novelty of hundreds and hundreds of extras adding literal flesh and blood to the scale. Sure there is probably digital augmentation or green screen work in every shot of the film, but adding digital over top of real, teeming crowds of people goes a long way towards feeling fresh by mining the practices of old Hollywood.
The film’s depiction of God is also interesting, although equal parts problematic from a narrative standing. God is portrayed, quite literally, as a petulant child. And Moses’ dealings with him are adversarial in nature. Moses comes to believe in and trust God, but their relationship is prickly, and this is an element I found particularly relatable, as will many others, I’m sure. On top of that, the portrayal of the plagues and the Passover is big, CGI laden spectacle, but also shown to impact the Hebrews as much as it impacts the Egyptians. Moses’ own plan for freedom is a long and lengthy war of insurrection (neigh terrorism), using his skills as a former Egyptian general to guide them. But God tells Moses to sit back and watch as the plagues take hold. Theologically, this sequence is interesting. Moses questions why God let the Hebrews suffer in slavery for 400 years and is now in such a hurry to free them that Moses’ own plan would take too long. And then when all the people of the land begin to suffer under the plagues, our lead character takes a big back seat for a half hour of screen time, which is a narrative concern even if it is an interesting, adversarial take on Moses’ relationship to God.
Exodus: Gods and Kings is giant, vanilla, studio filmmaking at its most mainstream. For the most part, I imagine faith audiences turning out to see a harmless and somewhat toothless action movie portrayal of the biggest story of the ancient world. Anyone just wanting to see sword fights and chariot battles won’t be disappointed either. In casting the widest possible net to attract an audience, Exodus becomes a four quadrant picture that will probably make its budget back, but which won’t etch itself into our public consciousness on any real level.
When I got home from seeing Aronofsky’s Noah this year, I tore through the Biblical account, sought out the Book Of Enoch on which much of the film was based, read several articles on the film, and found myself writing and writing. Noah was fascinating and troubling. Flawed and visionary. Noah had something to say, and said it in a gloriously divisive way. The box office paid off in the long run, but Paramount execs had endless headaches to get it there.
Exodus will please the studio execs, appease the mainstream audience, probably get a really strong CinemaScore, and then will quietly fade from conversation. In 30 years it’ll almost certainly still be Cecil B. DeMille’s epic playing in syndication for 24 hours on Easter and not Scott’s swashbuckling update.
And I’m Out.