Dec 12, 2014
This has been quite a year for God at the movies. There were several smash hits Christians embraced in the spring, such as “God’s Not Dead” (cost $2 million, made $60 million), “Heaven is For Real” (cost $12 million, made $90 million), and “Son of God” (another $60 million winner off a $22 million budget) all were embraced by Christians and shocked Hollywood by scoring well at the box office.
Then there was “Noah,” a huge-budgeted epic from Paramount that made just barely more than $100 million here in the US but did better around the world. But because it took some liberties with the story of Noah (including having a bunch of bizarre rock people come to life and help him build the Ark), many Christians attacked it and it’s generally believed it could have made double its gross if it hadn’t scared off so many believers.
Now comes “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” and it’s another big-budget epic from a major studio – this time Fox – and it’s been stirring up controversy on a couple fronts. First, star Christian Bale said he believes Noah was schizophrenic. Second, director Ridley Scott admitted he’s strongly agnostic. And third, God in this movie isn’t depicted as a booming voice, but as an 11 year old boy who’s petulant in what he wants.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I’m happy to report that that’s far from the case. In the actual film, Bale’s Moses starts with fears about whether he’s really being inspired by God to lead his Jewish people out of Egyptian slavery and into the Promised Land of Israel, but he is undeniably dependent on sincere prayer conversations with God to figure out each major decision on their 40-year journey to freedom.
Secondly, the God-as-a-kid concept actually works on its own terms. .Everyone loves the idea of God booming His voice across the skies, but yet we are told so often to withdraw into silence to hear the voice of God most directly, and Jesus famously spoke about how the ideal state of mind is to be like a child. Since none of us has directly heard God speak, who is to say that He couldn’t come to us in the form of a boy?
One other point I should mention is that director Ridley Scott handles the parting of the Red Sea differently than we’ve come to expect. There’s no giant, fast parting of the waters, but rather, the miraculous crossing of the Sea has a different yet still impressive visual approach that still pays off with spectacular end results that should leave no viewer’s jaw undropped.
Having addressed the controversies of this movie,I should state the obvious: the plot. Rather than following Moses from the moment he’s placed in a basket and floated down the river to Egypt, we meet him as a grown man in 1300 BC who is unaware of his status as the earthly leader of God’s Chosen people, the Hebrews.
The Hebrews have been Egypt’s slaves for 400 years, but right off the bat, the movie opens with a scrolling text that says that they never forgot their God and that “God has not forgotten them.” We quickly are thrust into the court of the Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro), and see Moses and the Pharaoh’s son Ramses (Joel Edgerton)
A priestess predicts that “a leader will be saved and a savior will one day lead,” but no one realizes she’s talking about Moses and Ramses. Moses only comes to realize his true background as a Hebrew and his destiny to lead them after he visits a slave-labor city and meets a scholar (Ben Kingsley) who tells him he’s a Hebrew and God has big plans for him.
This causes a major stir back home, and Moses is exiled to the desert, where he meets his wife and starts encountering God in the form of an 11 year old boy (Isaac Andrew). As he finally accepts his destiny to confront the pharaoh and demand the Hebrews’ freedom, he warns the Egyptian ruler that God will unleash a stream of plagues upon the empire.
And from there, Ridley Scott leaves behind the questionable elements of his take on Moses (other than using crocodiles to help explain how the waters turn to blood) and piles on one thrilling moment after another. The ten plagues come in one furious, wildly impressive montage that expertly improves on the effects of Hollywood’s prior great Moses epic “The Ten Commandments,” and even that amazing sequence leads to the utterly jaw-dropping adventures of the Egyptians on chariots chasing the Hebrews on foot across vast expanses of deserts, mountain ranges and ultimately the sea.
It is in these sequences, and the seemingly unending dangers that the Hebrews are put through, that “Exodus:God and Kings” truly shines. Moses turns to God time and again (equally often without the manifestation of the child) and prays his way through to the right decisions, and so ultimately the movie is not just spectacular entertainment but spiritually stirring as well.
We are at an interesting crossroads in which Hollywood is trying to listen to the call for Bible-based, faith-centered entertainment for the first time in decades. We also are at a point where world-class directs like Scott are eager to take on the challenge of mounting the epic tales of the world’s greatest book, the Bible.
It is important to vote with our dollars as believers, and support the good and even great efforts.
“Exodus: Gods and Kings” may have a couple of strange aspects to it, such as the child form of God, but it still is world-class film making that could really bring all ages and types of people around the world into the theater for an exciting message of meaning. And for that reason, I feel that “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is the most inspirational movie of the year.