A few warnings before we get into this: I’m going to get off topic and there are going to be some light spoilers.<\/p>\n
First thing, most of the reviews I’ve read of this movie make it clear that the writers never actually saw the movie.\u00a0 A good deal of them are negative (28% on Rotten Tomatoes).\u00a0 The only people who reviewed this film who I believe actually sat through it are Peter Travers at Rolling Stone<\/em> and that moron Capone at AICN<\/em>.\u00a0 Peter liked it and Capone didn’t.\u00a0 I usually like what Capone hates, and I love Ridley Scott (although lately he’s been underwhelming) so I was always going to see it regardless of the reviews.\u00a0 But I have a theory why most reviews were poor.<\/p>\n Somebody, I forget who, raised a stink early in production about most of the actors playing the Hebrews and Egyptians being white.\u00a0 There were efforts to engineer a boycott of the film based on this.\u00a0 My question is this: if we are in a post racial world (or trying to be) why should we care?\u00a0 Nick Fury (a white man’s white man if ever there was one) has been portrayed to great effect by Samuel L. Jackson.\u00a0 Idris Elba played a Norse god (the Norse didn’t even know there were non-white people until like 10 years ago).\u00a0 Ciaran Hinds is most certainly not Italian or blonde and he was amazing as Julius Caesar.\u00a0 Some chick played Peter Pan (a male character, I’m like 90% sure) on TV a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Zoe Saldana often portrays an African American and she’s of Cuban descent. Ian McKellen isn’t even really a wizard!\u00a0 Am I splitting hairs?\u00a0 Sure, but it all illustrates how stupid something like that is to get upset about.\u00a0 Complain about the movie, not the racial palette.\u00a0 And British actors can and will play ANYTHING, just roll with it.\u00a0 Besides, fun fact, we have Ramses the 2nd’s body (He’s the pharaoh in the movie) and it has been examined and determined that he was a ginger.\u00a0 Most (not quite all) of the gingers I know are white.\u00a0 But that’s just another example of how dumb it is to get bogged down in all this racial shit.\u00a0 Anyway, my sense is that many reviewers decided to dog the movie based on this quasi-controversy.<\/p>\n There’s plenty to in the actual movie to criticize.\u00a0 If you want to complain about something how bout anachronisms.\u00a0 Cavalry uses saddles with stirrups in the film.\u00a0 Those weren’t invented for at least another millennia.\u00a0 They have steel weapons during the bronze age (iron wasn’t known yet, let alone steel).\u00a0 And if there was a historical Moses and the Exodus happened in anything resembling the old testament; it most certainly was not during the reign of Ramses 2, aka Ozymandias.\u00a0 That’s the popular person to ascribe the pharaoh in the Exodus story but there were like 9 Ramses.\u00a0 Nobody fucked with Ramses 2 for one (he is regarded as the most powerful leader of ancient Egypt) and for 2 his reign is nearly as well documented as the late Roman Republic.\u00a0 We know the month and year he died.\u00a0 Nothing resembling the events of Exodus is recorded.\u00a0 The pharaoh from Exodus, assuming the story is literal and isn’t metaphors and symbols, is most likely Thutmose 2.\u00a0 Like 400 years later.\u00a0 I’m not going to get into why I think people make that mistake.\u00a0 That’d be like 10 more pages.\u00a0 Ramses 2 didn’t rule from Memphis either.\u00a0 And I can do this all day.\u00a0 I guess my point is there’s plenty worthwhile to complain about if you’re going to bitch.\u00a0 Don’t manufacture a civil rights issue.<\/p>\n Told you I would get off topic.\u00a0 Anyhoo, back to the movie I saw (and if you’re paying attention note this one did not make x-mas prime time).<\/p>\n Like a lot of Sir Ridley Scott’s late work, this film had potential.\u00a0 Unrealized potential.\u00a0 The actors are all quite good.\u00a0 Visually the film is phenomenal.\u00a0 Story…\u00a0 meh.\u00a0 I mean most people know the basics of the tale.\u00a0 I think the film they wanted to make (but were a little too afraid to) was one in which Moses appeared schizophrenic and most of what happened seemed like it had a rational explanation other than the hand of God.\u00a0 That would have been cool, making it either he’s a frootloop or he’s talking to God.\u00a0 And they start it like that.\u00a0 Most of the plagues are explainable, if unpleasant, natural disasters.\u00a0 When he hears God speaking to him, nobody else hears God and it looks like a crazy man talking to himself.\u00a0 But then they intermittently try to make it a story of 2 brothers (Ramses and Moses) tragically on opposing sides of the tide of history (kind of like Prince of Egypt<\/em> which was pretty good).\u00a0 They really should have picked one aspect and rolled with it but instead of whole assing one thing they half ass several things.\u00a0 I didn’t hate it but it’s nothing to write home about.\u00a0 Not mandatory viewing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few warnings before we get into this: I’m going to get off topic and there are going to be some light spoilers. First thing, most of the reviews I’ve read of this movie make it clear that the writers … Continue reading