Butler's Cinema Scene

Joel Edgerton and Christian Bale as Ramses and Moses

“EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS” My rating: C

150 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings” runs for almost 2 1/2 hours — and that still isn’t enough time for it to figure out why it’s here or what it wants to say.

It’s based, of course, on the Old Testament story of the exodus of the captive Hebrews from Egypt, but the filmmakers are obviously ambivalent over matters of faith. Heck, they explain away the story’s supernatural elements as the result of a bump to Moses’ noggin.

This is the second monster-budget biblical epic of the year (it follows Darren Aronofsky’s over-produced and over-thought “Noah”). If Hollywood doesn’t believe, why does it bother?

In a word: spectacle. Scott and his visual wizards pull out the stops to create the thriving Egyptian capital of Memphis, the parting and unparting of the Red Sea, a slam-bang  battle with an invading army.

But on a spiritual and dramatic level “Exodus” is a creaky affair.

Most of us are familiar with Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 “The Ten Commandments,” an alternately silly and awe-inspiring affair. DeMille may have had the dramatic instincts of a snake oil salesman, but he was a fierce believer in his own showmanship, and if you can ignore the absurd emoting, his epic remains ridiculously entertaining.

Scott, on the other hand, delivers a film that is, well, grumpy. For all the f/x wizardly, there’s not much joy or discovery to be had. “Exodus” feels like a paint-by-numbers job assembled by an indifferent committee

Dispensing with the babe-among-the-bullrushes origin story, the revisionist screenplay (by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian) begins with the grown Moses (Christian Bale) and  Prince Ramses (Joel Edgerton), who were raised as brothers and are now waging war on an enemy nation. (It’s a trick Scott learned with “Gladiator” — start your film with a big battle.)

It is evident to everyone — including the Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro) — that Ramses is a privileged lout and that Moses would make a better leader, but bloodlines are all important. Soon enough, Ramses exiles Moses, and our hero eventually settles into life in the hinterlands.

But then he gets caught in a landslide, is knocked unconscious and awakens to a burning bush and the Almighty in the form of a rather crabby young boy.

Believing he has been ordered by God, Moses returns to Egypt to foment rebellion, with the help of some ghastly plagues.

Bale, an actor who seems game for just about any challenge, plays Moses as psychologically tormented. This Moses simply doesn’t want to be here. Yawn.

Edgerton’s Ramses pales in comparison to the buff, arrogant and very sexy interpretation by Yul Brynner in DeMille’s film.

And the movie is jammed with pointless cameos by familiar faces like Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley. Aaron Paul, late of cable’s “Breaking Bad,” looks lost as Moses’ colleague Joshua — he gets maybe three lines of dialogue.

The high point of the film has nothing to do with the performances — it’s the plagues (a bloody Nile, frogs, locusts, boils) unleashed upon the Egyptians. About the only time “Exodus” comes to life is when it’s dishing outlandish punishments.

Of course, when DeMille needed to show thousands of Hebrews, he had to hire thousands of extras. That was impressive. Scott whips up most of his effects from electronic bytes. Moral: When you can show anything, nothing is that special.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” as a palate cleanser.

| Robert W. Butler