Exodus: Gods and Kings
“Follow me and you will be free. Stay and you will perish,” Moses (Christian Bale) You know a movie is in trouble when it can’t surpass a previous telling of the same story from nearly 60 years ago. Cecil B. DeMille’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) helped define the Hollywood historical epic. At 220 minutes, the story had room to breathe. No slouch in terms of runtime, EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS still feels rushed at two and a half hours. (Might we expect a director’s cut à la KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, ALEXANDER and TROY?) Devoid of passion or intellectual inquisitiveness, director Ridley Scott sleepwalks through a film that does not test him or its players, the casting of whom has met with controversy. Jamming in incident at breakneck speed leaves little room for introspection and nuance. (NOAH, on the other hand, from earlier this year, suffered from a surfeit of bizarre choices.) [To read more, click here.] |