This Rotten Week: Predicting Exodus: Gods And Kings And Top Five Reviews

Getting into the holiday movie season typically means a plethora of flicks to choose from. Big budget films, pet projects, star turns and everything in between. This is a solid time of year to hit theaters. Not that everything coming out is great (see below), but the variety is there. This week we’ve got Moses and Chris Rock.

Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.

Nothing says "Ancient Egypt" quite like a bunch of dirtied-up white guys running around the desert speaking and yelling in English with a modern rock soundtrack playing in the background. I’m not typically a stickler for things like "accuracy," but this one just feels way, way, way off. It could be Christian Bale as Moses failing to hit the biblical imagery I’ve held for years up in my own cranium. Or it could be the culturally indecisive look of the rest of the cast. I’m not sure. What I do know is that there’s going to be a viewer gap in this film. And it’s started already.

Check out part of what I mean the trailer for Exodus: Gods and Kings



I suppose there are certain stories we have almost fully formulated in our imaginations. The story of Moses is one of them. It’s not that I’m a religious nut who’s going to poke holes in the Biblical accuracy of the film, but I find it hard to believe many people at all will walk out of the theaters with any real insight into Moses’ story after seeing this film. (Or be able to get over that he isn’t a white-haired guy in a robe holding a staff). This film really just looks like Gladiator with a few more plagues and natural disasters thrown in. Frankly, it looks ridiculous.

It stands to reason that director Ridley Scott has a "thing" with trying to make the past way more bad-ass than it probably was. He’s handled historical stuff, making it shoot for the big screen and had success with Gladiator (76%) and, uh not so much with Robin Hood (43%) and Kingdom of Heaven (39%). Sometimes the epic historical drama works. And, as appears to be the case with Exodus, sometimes it doesn’t.

Ridley Scott has a bunch of great movies under his belt, but his fastball might be losing an mph or two down the stretch. Critics are panning this latest with words like "mediocre" and "boring." It’s sitting below 50% now, and I bet it doesn’t crest over that mark. Independent of some controversy about the less-than-accurate casting, the movie appears a retread, coming up with nothing particularly new.