The just released biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings" will serve as a Rorschach test for critics. In general, the dumber the commentator, the more likely he will be simply to dismiss it.
This isn't to say that there's not plenty wrong with the film. Its dialogue varies from very good to memorably awful. One particular howler occurs when Joel Edgerton as Pharaoh tells Moses (Christian Bale) that if the Israelites were to leave Egypt that "the economic consequences would be problematic." There's also some odd bad grammar in which God seems to have difficulty distinguishing between the nominative and objective cases when He speaks.
This appearance of the divine in the movie gets to another conflict that the film is stirring up: hostility from the unimaginative but devout. That cohort reportedly objects to the decision by director Ridley Scott to present to the audience a boy (Isaac Andrews) who speaks to Moses, one who may be an angel -- or perhaps the directly incarnated Old Testament God himself.
Fundamentalists are reportedly further irked by liberties that Scott and his collaborators have taken with the Old Testament account. Notably, in this version, Moses is not dependent on his brother Aaron's voice, and the parting of the Red Sea does not make of the seawater a "wall" on each side.
A final faction against the film is composed of those among the politically correct who wish that it had been cast with more obviously semitic actors.
I think we can acknowledge that none of these objections should matter much from the point of view of storytelling.
But the movie is ponderous and sometimes slow.
Yet it is also memorably grand, beautiful and spectacular. Given a reported budget of $160 million dollars, thousands of extras and even more animals to place on screen, Scott brings all of his genius to the task of presenting the monumentality and grandeur of ancient Egypt and the glory won in the escape of the Hebrews. Scott has thought of every conceivable way of showing his backdrops magnificently: elaborate and loving crane shots, elegant tracking shots and serpentine hand-held shots from within the crowds.
The camerawork is masterful.
And there's romance in tenderness in Moses' wooing and love for Zipporah (Maria Valverde). Best of all and in marked contrast to the much beloved but horribly acted Cecil B. DeMille version, "The Ten Commandments", Scott's film is generally well-acted. (One notable exception is a badly miscast Sigourney Weaver as the mother of the Pharaoh.) Especially impressive is Ben Kingsley as the man who must tell Moses that he is a Jew and Bale himself in the title role -- though it's worth noting that Bale's accent in the film is at different times Cockney, American and Oxbridge.
Is "Exodus: Gods and Kings" a rip-roaring piece of breathless adventure and excitement? No, it isn't. But it's obvious that Scott didn't intend it to be. Unlike the DeMille version, which is still one of ten highest-grossing films of all time when box office receipts are adjusted for inflation, this is an account of Exodus that is not camp and does not aim to be.
If critics are seeking that, they will be disappointed. Yet the story of Exodus should not be confused with "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." If "Exodus: Gods and Kings" is deeply flawed, it's no host of plagues visited upon the land. Rather, it's an often very grand if not infrequently flawed epic possessed of scale and ambition.
