Ashdoc's movie review---Exodus : Gods and kings

ashdoc

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A man grows up in the royal households of Pharaohs and kings....
And a divine prophecy reveals that he is one destined to be a leader one day....
As omens anticipate that the prophecy is going to be true , a rift develops between him and the future ruler of the kingdom who fears the prophecy....
But as the man one day meets the slaves of the king , he learns that he is actually one of them....and they are looking to him to free them from the chains of slavery....for he is the chosen one....
He is forced , on pain of somebody near and dear to him being killed , to confess his true lineage before his rival who is now king....
And he is banished from the land for being from a race of slaves....
He wanders away to meet his wife and raise a child with her becoming a shepherd....and he spends nine long years trying to forget what he was...

But can a man ever escape his true calling ?? Can he not do what destiny has already decided for him ??
No he can't , especially if you are a true believer and believe the old religious stories....
So he has to heed the command of God....His God....and he has to leave his heartbroken wife and his sulking son behind and go back to the land he grew up in....
And before him lies the task of a lifetime....his lifetime....to lead his people out of bondage to the promised land....

So can he complete the immense task given to him ?? Can he emancipate his people and deliver them to their promised land ?? Is justice and something called God really there in this world ??

To those who are well versed in religion and history , the answers to these questions are too well known....
For the man destined to lead his enslaved people is Moses ( played by Christian Bale ) , and his people are the Hebrews who are slaves of the Pharaohs of Egypt...

It is a story that has been filmed before and brilliantly too , but that was in the twentieth century....
So the twenty first century needs it's own version---don't you think....

So 'Exodus , Gods and kings' tells us the same story that 'The ten commandments' told us before....but this version has modern IMAX and 3D effects....

And so , acting skills of actors take a little bit of a backseat while we give up ourselves to seeing a film having the most modern technology....
That technology does deliver---we get to witness the cinematic grandeur of hundreds of thousands of Israelities crossing the sea , of the sun being hidden by huge dark tornadoes swirling in the sky , and of giant waves rolling back on the empty bed of the sea to drown the Egyptian army and it's chariots....
And even before that , we see special effects showing crocodiles lunging from the blue Nile to eat humans creating a morass of blood , of hordes of frogs leaping to terrorize the land and of swarms of locusts attacking crops and starving the people....

The director does manage to give the film epic treatment , and music is appropriately enthralling for the given situation....
And you do feel for the Hebrews , for there are some emotional scenes in which you feel that you are one with their pain and their sorrow and their toil for freedom and their suffering....
Towards the end , as the Hebrews are marching towards the sea and the Egyptian king Ramesses ( played by Joel Edgerton ) gives chase to capture them and as they face the wide sea while the Egyptian army is hot on their heels , the film frankly acquires the proportions of a thriller....
Director Scott has saved the best for the last , and has given us a thrilling climax .
Acting is decent enough , by everyone .

There has some issue---of what were obviously middle eastern characters being portrayed by white actors , but an American film can hardly escape the market demand for white actors given the fact that America is still a majority white country...from my side all that is forgiven....
And it is especially forgiven because I liked the film....

Verdict---I was impressed .
 

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