Regarding the new
Bible move, Exodus: Gods and Kings,
all I can say is, Not only "no," but "hell no." Even as a
generic fantasy movie (along the lines of Lord of the Rings) it is totally
lame. As a retelling of the exodus story, it moves to horrid. As to what they
got right: well there is a Pharaoh, and a Moses, and some slaves, and some
plagues, and being caught between a sea and Pharaoh's army. But that's about
it. It would be worth seeing only as an exercise in how to totally mangle a
biblical story. It's not even their gap filling that I object to, though a lot
of that was bad. It's what they left out. The aim seems to be to turn Moses
into a fighting man. Here is my list of things that are wrong. It is by no
means exhaustive.
The movie begins
inexplicably with a battle between the Egyptians and the Hittites. Inexplicable
because the major battle at Kadesh between those two armies took place during
Ramesses II’s reign, not during his father’s. Plus there’s no mention of the
eventual peace treaty signed between the two nations. The only point seems to
be to establish both Moses and Ramesses fighting abilities and to round out one
of the gap fills, an Egyptian prophecy that someone will save someone’s life,
and then become king. During the battle Moses saves Ramesses. And that means
what exactly?
