Exodus: Gods and Kings - Trailer

With Son of God and Noah behind us, it seemed like our requisite number of annual Hollywood Bible-themed epics had passed, but lo and behold, along comes Exodus: Gods and Kings.


I'm wowed by the spectacle (looks like what Noah wanted to be) - but I'm skeptical about the storytelling. On the other hand, I'm a long-time Christian Bale fan, and I've enjoyed Joel Edgerton as well. My favorite adaptation of the Moses story will probably always be The Prince of Egypt, frankly. Yes, the animated musical. Incidentally, Prince also has my favorite on-screen representation of God as well, so take that, insipid hippie protagonist of Son of God.

Hannah Long

Noah - Movie Review

Should you see this film? Should you not see it? I think the only thing I can positively say is: Don’t see it with your grandmother.

Darren Aronofsky ruffled feathers by proclaiming his new movie Noah the “least Biblical Biblical film ever made.” This is true, if your definition of “Biblical” is “stars Charlton Heston and has an anti-Communist agenda,” as The Ten Commandments did (it’s notable they both have subplots which didn’t occur in the Bible). Noah breaks numerous Bible movie conventions, and though its iconoclastic bent can be over the top, it effectively utilizes this alienating tactic to shock the audience into seeing the story with new eyes.

First thing to go is the traditional flamboyant Middle-Eastern attire, replaced by dull tunics of animal skin right out of either the Paleolithic era or a modern dystopia. I incline towards the latter, because the film lacks a real dimension of age. The world doesn’t seem young (should it?)—but rather old and decrepit and empty. It’s a bad sign when the majority of the striking visual shots can be contained in a film’s trailer.

The Son of God - Movie Review

[Actually, this is an excerpt from the relevant portions of my review of the TV miniseries. Since I haven't seen the film, there may be a few inconsistencies, but I felt this commentary is still relevant.]

“There are the kind of thoughts which in combination create the impression that Christianity is something weak and diseased. First, for instance, that Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish and unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world….[But in the New Testament] I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing from the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry god—and always like a god.”

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

I have high expectations for Jesus. Of course, it’s not fair to give The Bible’s producers a break because of the intense levels of scrutiny—they knew they had to get Jesus just right, if they got anything right. So most of my criticism is focused on Diogo Morgado’s portrayal of the Son of Man. To be fair, nobody will ever be able to play Jesus correctly (whether they should even try is another subject), but regardless, there are some things one should remember if you want to do things by the Book:

1. Jesus was fully man – this means that, even if there were times that he was otherworldly, there were other moments that he was just an ordinary guy. Ordinary does not mean “sinner”, ordinary means “has a sense of humor” or rather: “doesn’t treat himself—and everything—with deadly seriousness.”
2. Jesus was fully God – this means that, despite his ordinariness, he had a few raging-holy-God-of-wrath-and-judgment moments. Usually he used this rage against the self-righteous, and his deep, reckless love, for the poor.
3. Jesus was not, in fact, an enlightened hippie – he was from a Podunk country town (almost certainly with an accent.)
4. We have no reliable information that Jesus was drop-dead gorgeous or had cute hair or a perfect nose. It’s rather possible he looked, y’know, like someone from Fiddler on the Roof, an ordinary, albeit Jewish-looking everyday guy.