Exodus Movie Review

This morning going into afternoon, I went to go see the movie Exodus: Gods and Kings with part of my youth group. Well needless to say, I was highly disappointed. Beware; if you don’t know the story of Moses then: spoiler alert! 

                So before I begin and say several of the things wrong with this movie, let me give you some background on the director: Ridley Scott. According to IMDb, Scott is an English director and producer. One of his more famous works was Gladiator. He was knighted for his contribution to British film. He is also an atheist. Now this does not mean he is some guy only doing this movie to get Christians upset, I cannot prove that or will I try. I’m just pointing it out.

                To begin, in the Bible Moses knew that he was Hebrew because it says that once Pharaoh’s daughter found him in the river she told Miriam, his sister, to find someone to nurse him. She brought Moses to his mother and Pharaoh’s daughter told his mother (without knowing it was his mother) to nurse him and she would pay her. It then says that the “child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son.” He knew all along that he was Hebrew, while in the movie he was shocked at the idea of being considered Hebrew. Plus the way that he was told was odd and Ramses found out and was angry which was also weird. After in the Bible, it says that when Moses was grown he happened to be looking out at the slavery in Egypt and saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses looked to either side and saw no one, so he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. In the movie the only people, other than the made-up war at the beginning, that he killed was one Egyptian guard who called him slave. In the Bible, when Moses went out a second day, he saw two Hebrew men fighting and he told them to stop and they asked if he would kill them too if they didn’t. At this point Pharaoh found out about the killing and sought to kill Moses, so Moses ran into the wilderness. In the movie, Moses goes to Ramses and eventually is exiled from Egypt for stopping Ramses from chopping off his sister’s hand.

Both in the Bible and in the movie, Moses ends up in Midian at a well and finds himself among the seven daughters of the priest there. He then marries Zipporah, one of the daughters, as her father allows and he has a son named Gershom. During that time, in the Bible the people of Israel cry out for liberation and in the movie it shows how Ramses worsens the slavery. In the Bible then, Moses is tending his father-in-law’s flock near the mountain of God and the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. The bush was not burned or consumed. Moses turns away from the bush and God calls out to him and says, “Moses, Moses! Here I am.” He then proceeds to tell Moses that Israel is suffering and needs delivering and Moses is the man to do that. Moses asks him how it could be him to go and save them and God assures him that He will be with Moses all the way. Moses then gets worried, what if the Israelites ask who this God is that Moses speaks of? God answers (in all capital letters in the NKJV), “I AM WHO I AM.” God then tells Moses that the Pharaoh will surely not let them leave, so He tells Moses that He will strike Egypt with all His wonders. Moses is then worried that the people will not believe him, so God tells him to throw his rod on the ground, as he does God turns it into a serpent. God tells him to take the serpent by the tail, and viola it becomes a rod once more. Moses then has another problem; he is not an eloquent speaker. The Lord then says to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?

Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you will say.” But Moses still did not want to speak and so the Lord told him to have his brother Aaron speak instead. In the movie, Moses walks to find his sheep and a huge mud slide happens which covers Moses so only his head is seen, however, as he is falling with the mud, he is hit in the head with a rock and then awakens to someone calling his name.  Moses awakens and sees a bush on fire and then sees a little boy. The little boy ends up being I AM. The little boy calls Moses General and tells him He needs him. The boy is portrayed as pretty spoiled and petty for the I AM. Either way, Moses agrees without second thought.

Moses, in the Bible, then goes to Jethro (his father-in-law) to ask permission to leave, and he is allowed to go. Moses took his wife and his sons to Egypt, as God told him that all the people who wanted Moses dead are dead themselves. Moses meets Aaron in the wilderness and they prepare to go to Pharaoh, as Moses explained all the God has told him to Aaron. In the movie, Moses leaves his family there and only meets Aaron once he gets to the Hebrew village. Then to skip some parts in the Bible that aren’t mentioned in the movie is the encounter with the Pharaoh, Moses, and Aaron as they discuss the idea of letting these people leave Egypt. The Pharaoh of course doesn’t let the people go, as said in the movie. God reassures Moses, not in the movie that His people will be set free. Again, in the Bible, Aaron and Moses go to Pharaoh this time though they show Aaron’s rod turning into a serpent, Pharaoh’s wise men and magicians though make their rods into serpents, in the end though Aaron’s serpent ate all the others. Pharaoh then told them that no, the people would not lead. Then the plagues start, in both the Bible and the movie. Aaron and Moses, in the Bible, were told to strike all the water in Egypt and it would turn into blood. The Pharaoh’s magicians were able to create this blood too, so the Pharaoh still said no to letting the people go. In the movie, all of a sudden, crocodiles started swimming into the river and eating people and afterwards they ate themselves until the river was filled with blood. In the Bible, it was seven days and then Aaron and Moses went to Pharaoh to ask again, and they brought the second plague of frogs but the magicians were able to make frogs come up out of the river too.

This time Pharaoh told Moses to take away the frogs and he would let the people go, so Moses asked God and He did. But Pharaoh, once he saw relief, hardened his heart and did not let the people go. In the movie there were frogs but Moses never went to ask again and Pharaoh never did any of that. The third plague was lice over the land of Egypt which wasn’t in the movie. The magicians could not make lice appear and so they said it was God, but Pharaoh was hardened and did not relent. The fourth plague was flies, which was in the movie, and they were everywhere, but in the land of His people. Moses then asked if he could go for three days, along with the people, to sacrifice to the Lord and Pharaoh said yes if he took the flies away. The flies left and Pharaoh said no, again. This last part did not occur in the movie, only that flies were everywhere. The fifth plague was Egypt’s livestock dying, while the Hebrew’s livestock lived. Pharaoh saw that the Hebrews had livestock and the Egyptians didn’t, so he again said no, they couldn’t leave. In the movie, the livestock would throw up blood and then keel over and die, they died in both sections: Egypt and Hebrew. The sixth plague was boils on every Egyptian, like in the movie, the only difference was again, and Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go. The seventh plague was hail and fire mixed with it, only where the Hebrews lived, there was no hail. The movie just showed hail, and it was everywhere. In the Bible, Pharaoh, once the plague subsided, did not let the people go. The eighth plague was locusts which will cover the earth so no one can see the earth, in the movie it showed this too. But again Pharaoh, once the plague ended he hardened his heart. The ninth plague was darkness for three days but all the people of Israel had light. This one in the movie wasn’t really shown; it was mixed with the death of the firstborn plague to come. Once the darkness was gone, Pharaoh hardened and did not let them go. During all of these plagues in the Bible, Moses and Aaron would first warn Pharaoh of the plagues and he would always tell them to leave. Then when the plague started, Pharaoh would be fed up with it and ask Moses to take it away and God would. Each time, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened even if he promised to let the people go if the plague stopped. None of this was shown in the movie.

Next to come in the Bible is when God tells Moses that he will go at midnight and kill every firstborn child in the land. But none of the children of Israel will die. And once this last plague is over, then Pharaoh will let the people go, in fact, he will insist they leave. In the movie, the little boy, who is supposedly God, tells Moses His plan but Moses says he wants no part in it. Plus with all the other plagues, in the movie, Moses never knows what is going on. Then in the Bible, it describes the Passover meal and then the painting of the doorpost with the lamb’s blood. In the movie it shows the painting of the doorposts, nothing more. So the tenth plague occurs and all the firstborn of Egypt die. Pharaoh then tells Moses and Aaron to leave. This happened in the movie. Then the Bible explains some Passover rituals and first born laws. Then it describes how the Hebrews went toward the Red Sea and the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night by a pillar of fire. In the movie they went to the Red Sea but because Moses was lost and God was never depicted. In the Bible, God tells Moses to camp by the sea and then tells him that Pharaoh’s heart will be hardened again but this time He will gain honor over Pharaoh and his army. So Pharaoh went with his army to pursue the Hebrews. When Pharaoh was close by, the children of Israel were afraid, but God had a plan. Then the Angel of the Lord went out as a pillar of cloud and stood between Moses and the Pharaoh, so no one came near the other all night.

Moses then stretched his rod over the sea and God caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea into dry land, the waters were divided. The Hebrews were able to walk in the midst of the sea on dry land. The Egyptians pursued them into the sea and in the morning the Lord looked at them and he troubled the army by taking off their chariot wheels. The Egyptians then said; let us flee from the God of Israel. God told Moses, then, to let the waters go back and crush the Egyptians. It was so and the Egyptians were overthrown. The children of Israel were then saved. In the movie, the Hebrews camped for a night and then Moses threw a sword into the water and in the morning the water was receding but we don’t know to where, it’s just going away, no splitting of the Red Sea. And there was no pillar of cloud to protect the Hebrews from the Pharaoh. They walked across and then the Egyptians were coming after them, but turn when they saw a big wall of water coming back at them, but Moses was still in the middle talking with Ramses. Then Moses runs and Pharaoh is stuck and so are the other Egyptians and the Hebrews are safe. Then Moses is hit by the water and should have died but somehow didn’t and Ramses didn’t die either but all other Egyptians did.

You would think the movie would end there but it didn’t. Moses still had to go to his wife and kid and then they traveled to the land of “milk and honey,” which is what happened later in the Bible. And then Moses sees the people building the golden calf. Then Moses is seen making the Ten Commandments and he has a weird conversation with the little boy who is supposedly God. The movie ends there. It was a really long movie and it was mostly wrong. There were several little things that were wrong but the thing that was really upsetting was the portrayal of God. He was supposed to be this great I AM and instead he is seen as a bratty little kid throwing a tantrum for not getting what he wants.

Now, it is okay to get a few things wrong or misinterpreted but this was really bad. I don’t see how hard it is to make a movie based off of a Bible story. If movies can be made that are fictional and an atheist thinks that the Bible is fictional, how hard is it to make the movie as if it’s just a story? Honestly, if you want to take God out of a Biblical story, you can’t. It’s like trying to take Harry Potter out of the Harry Potter movies. Which sounds ridiculous, and it is! The Bible is all about God, what do you expect? You can’t try to take him out of the story, it’s ridiculous. Just make the movie as if it is a story, don’t try to screw it up because you don’t believe in it. If you can make movies about Thor and Loki (Norse gods), how hard is it to make a movie about my God? Goodness, I hate when a movie that is based off of a story or book is skewed or done really poorly. I did not like Divergent, The Fault in our Stars, or The Maze Runner movies. They were done terribly, the casting was the main problem but still they messed up so many things and I was upset. The Bible is also a story; the only difference is it isn’t fiction. So if you mess that up, yes I am going to be upset. I was also upset with the first Hunger Games because they really messed up the ending and I didn’t know how they’d start the second, but they did a fine job and I forgave the mistake. The Harry Potter movies as well had several things missing and a lot that was lame, but I still enjoy those movies especially the last two. I’m not just complaining because I’m a Christian, although that is the main reason. I am also complaining because they messed up the story.

I didn’t bother to see Noah because I knew that one would be bad, but this one I had hope that maybe they’ll do it well. Nope, Scott did not do it well. Please, if you’re going to make a movie from a Bible story do it well. Don’t get rid of that personal relationship that Moses had with God, don’t mess up the plagues and vital parts of the story, don’t make God a little boy that’s spoiled and bratty, and don’t make Moses seem like just a warrior of men and not a warrior for Christ.

Sorry for such a long post, but it was fitting my mood. If you see the movie, I’m sorry that you had to endure so many mistakes. Thankfully it wasn’t as awful as Noah (according to my dad). I used the NKJV for all of my Bible research; I’m not just making it up! Also, I may be missing some other mistakes but seeing that the post is already super long, I’ll leave it at what it had now.

Goodbye, until next time!