Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Maria Valverde, Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, Hiam Abbass, Isaac Andrews, Ewen Bremner, Indira Varma, Golshifteh Farahani, Ghassan Massoud, Tara Fitzgerald, Dar Salim, Andrew Tarbet, Ken Bones, Hal Hewetson.

For the more sceptical age we find ourselves in, where the world has become more polarised in its disbelief’s as it has in its religious fervour, there is surely room for more interpretation of a contentious event than ever before.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is Ridley Scott’s latest journey into the epic, the ambitiously creative and once you peel back the layers of a man who perhaps has questioned his own take on life in the last year with the very sad passing of his brother, the film is perhaps the last great story of 2014 to hit the cinematic screens.

The journey into potentially strife ridden controversy has never really stopped Ridley Scott from ever attempting anything. He asks a question of his film’s fans and if that person cannot or will not answer them, Mr. Scott is not going to worry about that, but the questions remain whether or not some people cannot accept them. By putting a more sceptical slant on the biblical story of Moses, his relationship with Ramses and the flight out of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings is perhaps a more lavish and yet grittier explanation of the events that makes the story a compelling read.

One of the main arguments against the film is its historical inaccuracy. It’s hard to defend it in many ways but all stories, especially those that were not recorded for posterity pre-Caxton or told by word of mouth, are open for explanation from many sources. It all depends on what you are prepared to believe. If a film can explain in elementary scientific terms what bought about the plagues of Egypt, albeit in a convoluted form, or what may have caused the apparent miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, then it is an option that Ridley Scott as a film maker can surely apply. It is after all only a view point that stands to correct some of the possible inaccuracies passed down by the same learned scribes at the Council of Nicea, the same council that has held the world’s opinions in sway and the minds of Kings since.

With exceptional performances by Joel Edgerton as Ramses, who captured the faltering Pharaoh with great poise and who captured the emotion of a man losing control of his own faith and that of his  subjects with an intense heavy heart and, although brief, and Indira Varma as the High Priestess, who showed with a certain self-assurance that the position of a woman throughout the ages has depended on what her word means to the man in her life, Exodus: Gods and Kings is far more than just an interpretation of a story, it is an epic of grandeur and style but with a more humanistic value than the idea behind the Charlton Heston equivalent.

If a story can be told that can make a person think independently and make them ask questions of what has been laid down before, the quicker Humanity might move on in the right direction. Exodus: Gods and Kings might polarise views but it cannot be denied that it asks the right questions. A film of true worth can be seen if it asks you to re-evaluate your faith, whatever that may be. The strong minded will not have a problem with that.

Ian D. Hall