Exodus: Gods and Kings

Ridley Scott’s worst movie since Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus: Gods and Kings follows Christian Bale’s Moses as he embarks on a perilous quest to lead Egypt’s slaves to safe haven – much to the chagrin of the country’s petulant leader, Ramses (Joel Edgerton). It’s ultimately difficult to recall a more run-of-the-mill Hollywood epic than Exodus: Gods and Kings, as Scott employs an aggressively bland sensibility that’s contained within virtually every aspect of the film – from the passable yet unexceptional performances to the generic computer-generated effects to the leaden, episodic narrative. Scott’s inability to wholeheartedly draw the viewer into the disastrously overlong proceedings compounds the less-than-engrossing atmosphere, and it’s surprising, given the decidedly over-the-top storyline, just how dull Exodus: Gods and Kings eventually (and inevitably) grows. (This is, after all, a movie in which god is portrayed as a malevolent supervillain.) And while Scott offers up a small handful of admittedly compelling sequences – eg the people of Egypt are pummeled with one horrible occurrence after another by an impressively wrathful god – Exodus: Gods and Kings builds to an absolutely disastrous final stretch that’s as tedious as it is overblown (ie it’s oppressively CGI-heavy stuff that feels as though it’d be more at home in a video game). It’s ultimately difficult to label the film as anything more than a lazy attempt by Scott to replicate the success of earlier hits (eg Gladiator), and it is, in the end, impossible to discern just what drew the venerable director to this eye-rollingly stale material.

*1/2 out of ****