Exodus: Gods and Kings

While sporadically stirring, and suitably epic in its ambitions, Exodus: Gods and Kings is uneven and lacking in emotion. The real shame is watching famed British director Ridley Scott, the visionary behind such classics as Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator. In a creative dead zone. The movie hits all the major points, like checking off boxes on a list, yet tells its tale at an arms-length with paper-thin characters. I would actually suggest watching DreamWorks, The Prince of Egypt to get a more nuance and emotional oomph then Exodus.

Exodus is one of the most telling examples of storytelling mediocrity .Which is completely overshadowed by amazing  production values. The visual are clearly lavishly splurged upon . From the monuments through to the slums of the slave's right down to the extra clad streets, Exodus brims with life and a detailed and often incredible visual palette. What’s the point to all these amazing production values if the script never engages it’s characters. Feels like Scott has become more concerned with spectacle than story.

Before seeing the movie, the media were making a lot of noise around the casting of actors in Exodus. I honestly don't care, Hollywood been making biblical movie with high profile actors since forever. What’s more important to me is if the cast can turn that performance into something. That’s their job. Christian Bale fairs the best, only because he’s imitating Russell Crowe from Gladiator. His incarnation as Moses is unbalanced, they’re moments of

humanity but he feels more a like BC batman. You never really feel the weight of Moses actions and as a audience you don't care what he does. Because you are never given a reason why Moses care about his people. Bale is also the only character in the film that looks like he ages or gets hurt. Everyone else just seems to get sand or dirt on themselves.

Joel Edgerton general looks confused. Like he not sure what to do with his character. The performance is decent but lacking. He plays Rhamses like a confused child with

eyeliner and grizzled looks. It would have been better to just do full over the top villain. The rest of the cast is sadly mis handled. Signorine Weaver is in this movie. She literally does nothing. Then disappears into the background never to be seen again. Aaron Paul's Joshua and Ben Kinglsey's Nun do nothing memorial. They occasionally get to make a face between angry, confused or battle mode. The film has a few genuine moments of memorability, that being all largely related to the onset of the plagues. 

These really are the set piece for seeing the movie. The impressive visuals, stunning sets and genuinely wow moments concerning the plagues lift the movie up. Shows off Scott’s masterful direction of his production department. Like a conductor of biblical mayhem. It’s not enough to save this emotionally void epic from a giant wave of the mundane. 

I hope he can break his slump and remember how to portray his characters actions. Rather than relying on visual effects.

2 out of 5  confused actors with eyeliner and grizzled looks.

The Counselor

The Players- Legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott (Alien) and Pulitzer Prize winning author Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men).
 
Their Mission- To recreate what it would feel like to be stuck in a room with a bunch of philosophy students while Breaking Bad was playing in the background.
 
Their Weapon of Choice- Being nice, polite and well-dressed.

 
THE COUNSELOR is simple story once you look it up on IMDB. A nameless lawyer (Fassbender), madly in love with his fiancée Laura (Cruz), is seeking to provide for her and give her the life she deserves. He decides to get in a once-and-I'm-out deal: namely, to get involved in a venture dealing with twenty million dollars worth of drugs being ferried to the States from Mexico.

Much like Ridley Scott’s other mess of a movie, Prometheus, the script clearly needed be broken down and rebuilt from the ground up in order to function. It felt like putting two very different sensibilities, those of its author, Cormac McCarthy, and its director, Ridley Scott, together and hoping for magic. Instead you discover not even bacon can make broccoli delicious, unless the pig ate the broccoli beforehand.
 
What you get is a whole movie where you just watch a group of decent, polite well-dressed people trying to function like Shakespearean gangsta. As a viewer you feel distanced from the movie because you don't have a clue what is happening or why. I could complain of ponderous dialogue, but the movie didn't really have dialogue. It just felt like people making boring statements. The only interesting moment in the movie is where Cameron Diaz has sex with a car. This was not the awesome kind of interesting, but more the “What the hell did I just watch?”.
 
Never have I wanted to turn my phone on so much in a cinema. Angry Birds has a more engaging story. The vanilla plot ticks over mechanically towards a destination that was never in doubt, while the so called dialogue strives to be profound. You’ll spend more time wondering where these character got there outlandish outfits. The Counselor is just a terrible movie unless you like the idea of seeing good actors do Shakespeare if it was performed by William Shatner.


1 out of 5 well-dressed waffles.