CHRISTIAN BALE IN EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS

year: 2014 rating: **

Right before the strategic waves crash down, when the Red Sea finally parts, it's really more... drained.

That's what it feels like sitting through two-and-a-half hours of Moses and Ramses going back and forth: one holds a grudge, the other has conversations with God himself. Though not from a Burning Bush… that’s but a rudimentary apparition to get the ball rolling… Here the Creator takes form of a really tough child who gives the famously temperamental Moses a run for his money.

Bale & Edgerton

Directed by Ridley Scott and starring the always-intriguing method-acting Christian Bale, EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS is a different sort of Biblical epic – while visually immense, the geography mostly centers on two locations where each grouchy leader resides. 

Bale does a passable job in the lead role, a sort of MOSES: FIRST CLASS budding superhero partaking in LORD OF THE RINGS style swordplay, while Joel Edgerton, as the antagonistic Ramses (looking more like Brando's Colonel Kurtz than a nostalgic Yul Brynner), can’t shed his omnipresent frown...

Very understandable since Moses has more than a slight edge, including the ability to thwart a barrage of plagues: impressive scenes to watch but the searing melodrama had by each character is enough for the audience to pray for a conclusion.