Isaacs Picture Conclusions

SHITFEST 2015 ~ SUMMER: EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS (2014)

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SUBMITTED BY:

ROBLOGO

Thanks as always to Eric for doing an awesome job planning this Shit!!!!

Whenever that wonderful time of year for Shitfest comes around, I always get worried.

AS you all probably know, I love to watch movies; but the I generally enjoy watching “good” movies that give me that warm tingly feeling when it’s all over.

But for Shitfest, I have a very difficult task to complete and that is either (1) find a movie that I know I’m gonna hate, make it through the runtime and then actually write about it OR (2) think of a movie that I’ve already seen and hated and then sit thru it a second!!! time and then write a review of it.

Neither of these ideas EVER sit well with me, because who wants to either re-hash a shitty movie or add to that vault hidden far inside my head containing the collection of movies that I hated so much that I don’t plan to EVER see again

So once again, I racked my brains to find a movie that I’d be willing to sit thru knowing it will be shit…

and then I remembered!!!

reureka

There has been a movie on my list for months that I know that everyone hated, but that I had an iota of hope would possibly be entertaining for me (eventhough deep down I knew it would end up being complete and utter shit…guess I was right) and that movie is:

Drum roll please!!!!!

rdrumExodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

exodus new hd wallpaper

Growing up in a religious home and knowing my Bible stories quite well, I saw movies like The Ten Commandments numerous times and although DeMille took a LOT of license with his material, it still worked somewhat within the confines laid out in the Good book of how the Hebrew Slaves were freed from Egypt and returned to their homeland.

From 1956 (when it came out) until 1998, this movie was the movie that set the bar for the story of The Exodus from Egypt.

In 1998, Dreamworks SKG decided to release their first animated feature and it was The Prince of Egypt (1998) which gave us a whole new perspective on the story. Not only did it include all of the parts of the story we all heard as kids, but they added the psychological level of how such a lofty and humbling role would affect a man who spent his early years in Pharaoh’s Palace as a brother to the future Pharaoh.

This is IMHO one of the best animated films and by far the best movie about a Biblical tale.

When I heard last year that the Great Ridley Scott would be making a new epic version of the story with Christian Bale as Moses, I was very excited because it seemed to me to be the perfect combination to successfully recreating the story onscreen once again.

Boy was I (and everyone else) completely FUCKING wrong about that.

I can’t remember the last time I had so much trouble getting through a movie.

There wasn’t even anything laughable about it because it was done in one of the stupidest and silliest ways!

Their first and MOST Fatal mistake was the choice to let Scott Direct.

Usually Biblical tales are told by people who believe (at least to some degree) that the story happened because thru their own personal belief, they can help make us believe.

Scott just tore away most of the magic in this story by gutting some of the principal character traits of Moses and Pharaoh and even gets some of the plagues epically wrong and even portrays the entire timeline incorrectly.

I’m not gonna turn this into a theological discussion because that’s not the point here, but trust me when I say that even Scott was able to take out the entire story line of faith and miracles and made this movie feel like a really limp noodle that wasn’t able to accomplish anything at all.

It turns out that the choice of Bale was also terrible (and I usually LOVE his roles) because he tried to take the character to places where he would seem schizophrenic instead of wavering in his faith in God.

The CGI here is horrendous and I can’t recall any other big budget film that did some an awful job of creating effects.

The ironic part of me hating this movie is that the two greatest problems people have with this movie didn’t bother me at all: the ethnicity issue and the child.

Who cares if a Hollywood movie uses “bankable” Hollywood actors instead of racially correct actors playing roles from 4000 years ago, did anyone complain when Liz Taylor played Cleopatra? or when Paul Muni payed a Chinaman in the Good Earth or even when Cameron Crow cast Emma Stone as a Hawaiian native in Aloha? (well, maybe a bit)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

rnoo

We all wanna see top Hollywood actors in movies like this.

If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t have gotten the chance to see Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver and Aaron Paul in their few seconds of screen time. (BTW, how much did each of them get paid for a cameo disguised as top billing?)

The child issue can easily be accepted as the image God chose to reveal himself anthropomorphically in order for Moses to comprehend what he was seeing.

So does this movie actually have any merits to it???

ummmm….

NOPE!

This movie is shit thru and thru and it’s actually one of the rare times that I have felt that I wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life watching a movie.

I only wish that Ridley’s Scott’s version of this could be drowned by the terrible CGI used in this movie of the splitting of the sea! J

In order to not leave this review on a completely downer note, here are four better depictions of this story that can hopefully help redeem faith in Biblical adaptations.

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Huge thanks again to Eric for dealing with all us misfits when we break out of our molds to rant!  You definitely rock Eric!!!

117 comments

  4. Khalid Rafi

    Nice entry Rob. I agree with you, this is just such a boring movie with some of the worst CGI i’ve seen in any film in recent times. Joel Edgerton, who is actually a very talented actor gives such a poor performance, Ben Kingsley and Aaron Paul are completely wasted and Christian Bale deserves better. I hope it gets better for Ridley Scott because his career really seems to be sinking at this point.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
    • theipc

      I was watching The Killing (U.S. version) two weekends ago and noticed that Jonathan Demme directed a bunch of them. Remember when he was in high demand for movies? My point is – if things don’t turn around, Scott will be doing TV in the 20’s….

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      • Khalid Rafi

        I can see that happening, M. Night Shayamalan whos film career became a joke is actually doing good on the show Wayward Pines so there’s always TV, not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but the thing is that I haven’t seen a good Ridley Scott movie since The Matchstick Men which was way back in 2003 and even if you count American Gangster as one of his better films it been 8 years since he made a good movie. Im waiting to see how his latest movie The Martian turns out because this time he has both a great cast and a great screenwriter and a great book from which this movie is adapted. If he fucks this up he should seriously consider stop making movies and maybe just switch to TV.

        Liked by 2 people

      • Khalid Rafi

        I thought it was middling but the main reason I didn’t like it was because it reminded me of Twin Peaks but what I mean is that it is a huge improvement for Shayalaman over his terrible movies

        Liked by 1 person

  6. emmakwall

    Brilliant Rob!!!!! Loved this 🙂 and I loved the Rocky GIF, really made me laugh!

    I find it really hard deciding on a film as well, I know exactly what you mean! I am pretty forgiving towards most movies and sometimes it’s the genre I don’t like, rather than the movie itself.

    Anyway, great post!!!! 😀

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply
  9. Natasha

    Great job, Rob!
    I haven’t seen this yet, but Zoë wants me to, sure I am going to go into a full rage mode afterwards. It seems horrible! I agree with you – if you want to direct religious material you must have a thorough knowledge of the religion.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  11. Smash

    Yeah…. I saw a trailer for this movie and knew for sure it would be a piece of crap. Christian Bale is a mega hunk, so usually I’d see him in pretty much anything. But this is on my no-fly list.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  12. GaryGreg828

    Christian Bale would be a great Moses if he were given a quality script. I could tell this was going to be terrible, so I skipped it. The 10 Commandments is much better. Also, I think Joel Edgerton is one of the most boring actors in Hollywood.

    Great write-up and entry! 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  16. SLIP/THROUGH - Dan

    Good review. I liked the psychological approach. I’m thinking Moses would have wondered if he was going nuts. Check my review if youre curious .

    As far as casting, it would have been intrresting to see Chiwetel Ejiofor as Moses, and Idris Elba as Ramses. The slavery theme would also get a different spin / parallel with a Black cast. What do you think?

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  17. David

    Great choice, Rob. This is real mess of movie. We tore it apart on release on our podcast and I agree with from start to finish. Aimless and confusing, and spending far too long on some parts and glossing over others, there was not hook that got me to stay interested. Great post, my friend!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  24. mistylayne

    Aw, I was hoping this was gonna be a silly fun one and now my hopes are dashed. *sighs* I do understand the color/race issue though. It’s hard enough to be an actor, period, but to be an actor of color? God even knows how much harder and part of that is because roles consistently go to people who are white, for whatever the director’s reasons. Just an actor’s point of view! 🙂 I AM gonna have to go watch that cartoon you mentioned though, don’t think I’ve seen it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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