Have you ever felt like walking out of a movie even though you spent about $12 to see it? Was there ever a time that you left a movie thinking, “Geez, that was weird”? Or maybe you had many of those “Oh Come On!!” moments while watching the film. I think I felt all these emotions and more after seeing Exodus: Gods and Kings.
You have to know going in that it won’t be from a Christian perspective by any stretch of the imagination. Expecting liberal Hollyweird to make a conservative Christian movie is like expecting a politician to keep his promises. You could go looking for that sort of movie after you scrub the word ‘gullible’ off your ceiling. Usually the movie industry will take some poetic license and rightfully so. But in this case I think James Bond directed the film because someone had a license to kill facts.
My main problem with the movie was the overarching propaganda to push forth liberal agenda. I get it. You aren’t Christian but you are attempting to tell a Biblical story. At least try to stick to the text. Personally, I would have been happy if they would have put forth the events as the Bible described even with mixing in enough doubt so that there was a debate as to why things happened. What I mean is that you could have portrayed things from Pharaoh’s perspective and the Hebrew’s so that at the end of the movie the filmgoers could understand how both the Egyptians and Hebrews would have interpreted the events and could in some sense sympathize with both positions; the skeptic and the believer. Instead what we got was a presumptuous, anti-supernatural, anti-Bible, pseudo-faith propaganda.
Let me list a few of my critiques of the film here and post the rest in my follow up blog on Friday.
1) Moses seemed to be against the Hebrews in the beginning of the film. He was sent to evaluate a certain Egyptian city and its production. As he met with the Hebrew elders, attempting to see if there would be any insurrection, he was very antagonistic towards their belief in Yahweh. In was unclear to me but it also seemed as if Moses didn’t even know he was born a Hebrews. But in the Biblical text Moses is sympathetic towards the Hebrews knowing they are his brethren (Exod 2:11-12).
2) The poetic license of the film-makers was torching the famous Exodus 3 passage probably in hopes of burning that bush down once and for all. It seems as if Moses didn’t actually meet God, per se, but instead had a rather exhilarating experience in the wilderness. Whereas the Bible says Moses was in his right mind and speaking to the angel of the Lord (Exod 3:2), Hollyweird has revealed to us that Moses hit his head a little too hard during a mud/rock slide. In this shot by our 007 producers Moses meets God, who is supposedly a 10 (?) year old boy; kinda mean one too but lets not get ahead of ourselves. This vision (?) ignites the passion within Moses to go visit his brethren in Egypt to see how they are doing. There is no specific divine directive or revealed will of God. Instead we find Moses motivating himself because this is something he has to do for himself. Maybe these producers hit their heads a little too hard because I don’t know what Bible they are reading.
If you are going to make a movie about a Biblical story I understand the need to fill in some gaps. But stick to the gaps and quit diametrically contradicting specific statements found in the original text. If we were to make a movie about The Illiad would it be proper to change the story completely around? NO!!! Why? Because we all understand it to be fiction. That is the real issue. Hollyweird can’t deny the historicity of the Exodus account so they must wave their magic wand, aka poetic license, and take out everything which contradicts their worldview. But this isn’t very tolerant. Stay tuned for Friday’s post to see my other critiques of the movie.
You have to know going in that it won’t be from a Christian perspective by any stretch of the imagination. Expecting liberal Hollyweird to make a conservative Christian movie is like expecting a politician to keep his promises. You could go looking for that sort of movie after you scrub the word ‘gullible’ off your ceiling. Usually the movie industry will take some poetic license and rightfully so. But in this case I think James Bond directed the film because someone had a license to kill facts.
My main problem with the movie was the overarching propaganda to push forth liberal agenda. I get it. You aren’t Christian but you are attempting to tell a Biblical story. At least try to stick to the text. Personally, I would have been happy if they would have put forth the events as the Bible described even with mixing in enough doubt so that there was a debate as to why things happened. What I mean is that you could have portrayed things from Pharaoh’s perspective and the Hebrew’s so that at the end of the movie the filmgoers could understand how both the Egyptians and Hebrews would have interpreted the events and could in some sense sympathize with both positions; the skeptic and the believer. Instead what we got was a presumptuous, anti-supernatural, anti-Bible, pseudo-faith propaganda.
Let me list a few of my critiques of the film here and post the rest in my follow up blog on Friday.
1) Moses seemed to be against the Hebrews in the beginning of the film. He was sent to evaluate a certain Egyptian city and its production. As he met with the Hebrew elders, attempting to see if there would be any insurrection, he was very antagonistic towards their belief in Yahweh. In was unclear to me but it also seemed as if Moses didn’t even know he was born a Hebrews. But in the Biblical text Moses is sympathetic towards the Hebrews knowing they are his brethren (Exod 2:11-12).
2) The poetic license of the film-makers was torching the famous Exodus 3 passage probably in hopes of burning that bush down once and for all. It seems as if Moses didn’t actually meet God, per se, but instead had a rather exhilarating experience in the wilderness. Whereas the Bible says Moses was in his right mind and speaking to the angel of the Lord (Exod 3:2), Hollyweird has revealed to us that Moses hit his head a little too hard during a mud/rock slide. In this shot by our 007 producers Moses meets God, who is supposedly a 10 (?) year old boy; kinda mean one too but lets not get ahead of ourselves. This vision (?) ignites the passion within Moses to go visit his brethren in Egypt to see how they are doing. There is no specific divine directive or revealed will of God. Instead we find Moses motivating himself because this is something he has to do for himself. Maybe these producers hit their heads a little too hard because I don’t know what Bible they are reading.
If you are going to make a movie about a Biblical story I understand the need to fill in some gaps. But stick to the gaps and quit diametrically contradicting specific statements found in the original text. If we were to make a movie about The Illiad would it be proper to change the story completely around? NO!!! Why? Because we all understand it to be fiction. That is the real issue. Hollyweird can’t deny the historicity of the Exodus account so they must wave their magic wand, aka poetic license, and take out everything which contradicts their worldview. But this isn’t very tolerant. Stay tuned for Friday’s post to see my other critiques of the movie.
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