Director Ridley Scott \u2019s $140 million \u201cExodus: Gods and Kings\u201d\u009d isn\u2019t exactly drowning in a red sea, but its $24.1 million opening box office last weekend wasn\u2019t spectacular, either\u201d\u201dnearly $20 million below that for March\u2019s \u201cNoah,\u201d\u009d another expensive biblical epic. Like \u201cNoah,\u201d\u009d this movie had a director who couldn\u2019t bring himself to believe in the story he was telling.<\/p>\n
Mr. Scott is famously hostile to faith. The \u201cbiggest source of evil is of course religion,\u201d\u009d he told Esquire in 2012. Theoretically, that shouldn\u2019t make a difference to his moviemaking.[…but it has].<\/p>\n
Mr. Scott\u2019s Moses (Christian Bale) not only can\u2019t match Charlton Heston; his job is not to try. This Moses is a 21st-century skeptic who, instead of becoming the instrument of God in freeing the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, sits back and calls God \u201ccruel\u201d\u009d and \u201cinhumane\u201d\u009d for visiting plagues upon Egypt. Gone is the rhythmic narration in the Book of Exodus (and DeMille\u2019s movie) in which Moses travels again and again to the pharaoh to demand, \u201cLet my people go\u201d\u009d (not uttered in the new movie). God, for his part, is depicted as a vengeful 11-year-old brat ( Isaac Andrews ) who resembles no one so much as Joffrey, the nasty child-tyrant in HBO\u2019s \u201cGame of Thrones.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n