First of all, I have to be honest. Despite much of the skepticism surrounding the newly released Exodus: Gods and Kings, I truly believed that Ridley Scott was going to accomplish something that many other directors failed to accomplish when making film adaptations of biblical history. I expected this masterful filmmaker to turn the tide of Hollywood's gross and negligent treatment of the history of the world contained in holy Scripture. Ridley Scott was, without a doubt, my favorite director before I saw this film. I'm a huge fan of historical fiction that takes place in ancient and medieval eras. Scott has a knack for bringing history to life with his movies. With a wonderful resume' that includes Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Robin Hood, I had high expectations for Exodus. My expectations were sadly dashed 15 seconds into the film. It starts with a sad and pathetic:
1300 BCE
This set the tone for the entire rest of the film. For those of you who are not familiar with the acronym BCE, it stands for Before the Common Era and is a modern effort to reframe history so that Christ Jesus is not the central figure of human history. Despite replacing "Before Christ," however, the timetable remains exactly the same. 1300 BCE is the same year 1300 BC (Before Christ). It's just a way to make liberal historians less offended that Christ is still the central figure throughout human history and nothing they do will ever change that.
As a film, I have no problems with Exodus except for a few terrible casting decisions (one of the Egyptians was trying really hard to cover up his Scottish accent). It's visually stunning, the characters (and they are characters) are as developed as a two hour film can really allow, and Scott presents the historical story in a way that makes the history come alive.
The biggest problem with the film, however, is that this is not Scott's story to tell any way he wants to.
When Peter Jackson took The Hobbit and Hollywoodized it into a nine hour, epic re-imagining of Tolkien's literature, there was some push back from diehard Tolkien fans. There were some hurt feelings, people wrote the movies off as another expensive money grab effort from Hollywood, some people have bore through watching the tiresome films try to recreate the magic of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which has washed off a long time ago), and for the most part, Hollywood just made some fantasy nerds mad.
Ridley Scott, however, decided to join the ranks of many of Hollywood's most deplorable agents by treating Scripture like The Hobbit. You can re-imagine literature all you want, and the audience will be the judge of whether or not your rendition of the story is worthy or not by buying or not buying a ticket. However, you cannot re-write history so haphazardly and expect an intelligent, scholarly, and resilient faith community to stand by, shrug their shoulders, and watch as you make us out to be incredibly ignorant foolhardy nut cases who will believe just about anything.
I'm going to spoil the movie for you: the Israelites make it out of Egypt after crossing the Red Sea. It is all thanks to their heavenly child god.
No, you read that correctly. Child god.
The movie started out somewhat promising despite the glamorization of Moses and Ramases' relationship. It was like a live-action version of The Prince of Egypt at first, portraying Moses and Ramases as good friends who grew up together as if they were family. Although they are cousins, their bond is fraternal. Scott deviates from the biblical record quite grievously several times before his biggest mistake, and the next thing you know, Moses meets Zipporah, climbs up "God's mountain" chasing after some sheep, gets caught in a mud slide that breaks his leg, and wakes up to find a young boy stacking rocks in the shape of a pyramid. Just for the record, though, there is a burning bush in the background.
I don't expect Hollywood to follow the biblical account exactly. However, this is a very blasphemous deviation from the historic record. For the rest of the film, Egypt is represented by a strong, caring, loving father who is devastated when he and the rest of Egypt awake to find their firstborn children dead and Israel is represented by a unintelligent, and uncaring mob and a schizophrenic who abandons his family to follow the whims of a blood-thirsty, vengeful, and immature child who is supposed to represent the creator of heaven and earth. I feel very confident, that despite the blatant mockery of the the Christian faith (and the Jewish faith as well), most people who are ignorant of the biblical record still know that Christians and Jews do not pray to their child who art in heaven. Who do they think they are fooling?
From a business perspective, I am once again floored and confused by production companies making film adaptations of biblical stories and then alienating the only audience that has any invested interest in viewing the film. Atheists could care less about a movie about what they view as a make-believe fairytale. They'll see it once, wag their heads at the Christian community for believing any of that nonsense is true, and then they'll go on their merry way. Christian film is big business, and I know because I'm tired of watching all of the nauseating, poorly done ones that receive five stars on Netflix just because it's "Christian" and the main character has values. I don't understand why Hollywood hasn't caught on that, if they put their agenda to the side and stick to the biblical record, they can make buku bucks on a generation of Christians who are dying to see their faith accurately portrayed on the big screen. There is a generation of Christians out there that want their faith to be legitimized and taken seriously by an artistic community that continuously portrays them as nut cases who believe in rock people that saved Noah and now an oddball that left his family to follow a young boy who can stack rocks (I'm seeing a theme with the rocks).
The film was extremely confusing to me. I couldn't wrap my head around the message behind the film. On one hand, Scott decimates any and all influence that the Exodus has on the Christian and Jewish faith communities by detracting Israel or Moses' faith in God from the story completely. The only people in the movie with faith are Zipporah and a witch doctor. The Hebrews are not resting in God's promises, Moses spends most of his lines ridiculing the imaginary boy god for being a vengeful brat, and the Passover is all about pitying the poor lambs (boohoo). And yet, Scott doesn't shy away from presenting the story as a historic event that took place in a historic place and time with historic people. What's more, he also portrays the plagues as supernatural (albeit somewhat natural chain of) events. At first, the Nile turns into blood because ships of fishermen are attacked by blood-thirsty crocodiles, but Scott portrays every drop of water in Egypt eventually turning to blood and killing all of the crops and fish. He didn't clearly demonstrate that the plagues only affected the Egyptians, but by this point in the move, I was used to disappointment.
Overall, the message was mixed and confused. Quite honestly, I felt like I was watching a film made by a man who doesn't believe an iota of the biblical record as historical but cannot understand how billions of people around the world today and throughout history have not only believed that the Exodus is true, but point to it as a crucial part of their faith in God. It's a film by a man who quickly realized that he bit off far more than he could swallow, regretted making the film, but finished it because he had to. The first ending credit was, "For Tony Scott" (Ridley's older brother who committed suicide a few years ago). I feel like this is a film made by a man who is desperately wrestling with the reality of God, death, eternity, and faith, is struggling to understand his brother's suicide and reasoning behind it and made this film throughout his grieving process.
As Christians, we expect film adaptations of biblical history to be accurate through and through. There is no place for the artist in these films. However, film making isn't always about the story as much as it is about the filmmaker. This film clearly abandoned all reason and fidelity to the faith communities who were hoping it would turn the tide in Hollywood. However, taking a step back after seeing it, there are a couple of things to be observed from the artistic license Ridley Scott took with this story.
First of all, Scott portrays God as a mere, pathetic, immature, boyish child. This could be an allegory of Scott's personal struggles with the living God that has recently culminated in the difficult reality of the finity of life demonstrated by the abrupt death of his beloved brother. He portrays God as a fickle boy who just wants to see the people who bullied His people suffer and endure hardship. There's no glimpse into God's love, wisdom, sovereignty, authority, promises, faithfulness, and grace. Rather, God just wants pay pack. I wonder why Scott thinks God called Moses in the first place, since Scott basically has God challenge Moses and then do it himself after he sees how pathetic Moses is in his rendition of the story. This is clearly a film made by a filmmaker who is wrestling with God, and is struggling with balancing his worldview with the truth that he suppresses. This clearly comes out in the film, and Christians who see the film should recognize that the director of the film clearly has some battles taking place in his life.
Additionally, I found it somewhat ironic that this film portrays God as a child (quite blasphemously) during the time of year where the broader Christian church exalts baby Jesus (quite blasphemously). I would actually like to have a conversation with someone who is a die-hard "Jesus is the reason for the season" Christmas celebrator to explain why they find it offensive when Scott portrays God as a boy while they don't think it is offensive at all to exalt baby Jesus as "the reason for the season." When Jesus was born, He was fully God and fully man. God took our flesh, and at one very real point in history, He was a humble, nursing, weak, fragile, helpless, baby boy. However, even at this point, He was still God and the wise men traveled thousands of miles to worship Him as God. However, the way many Christians can speak about "baby Jesus" is not revering, not honoring to God, and is blasphemous towards the attributes of God. Jesus was a baby, and therefore, in His human nature He was vulnerable and as weak as a newborn babe. However, Jesus was still completely God, possessing every immutable attribute of God at that same time. That has to be balanced this time of year, as many people want to exalt a baby over and above almighty God.
In conclusion, Exodus: Gods and Kings is a major letdown. I had high expectations of Ridley Scott, and he made another blasphemous film adaptation of biblical history. I saw the movie, and I can save you the money of seeing it in theaters. However, as Christians, I think these films are not complete wastes of time. If you wanted to see if for the legitimization of what you believe, then yeah, you should probably skip it because it's going to hurt your feelings that, yet again, the world portrays the object of your faith as nothing but a foolhardy fairy tale. On the other hand, if you want to be objective and critical of the film's portrayal of what you believe, then it might just be worth renting at Redbox. It is a great insight into the eyes and minds of the nay sayers. Honestly, it's a strawman argument wrapped up in filmmaking clothing. It just comes to show that the world is not yet ready to take us seriously, and cannot accurately portray our argument (faith) before they tear it down. Don't be offended, but rather, use it as fuel to set the world ablaze by setting the record straight. Our faith, albeit foolishness to the world, is truth to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
(1 Corinthians 1:18-31 ESV)
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