Back in ancient Egypt, BatMoses has a friendly quasi-sibling thing going on with baldie Ramses. Baldie Ramses' dad Seti, named after the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, rates BatMoses higher than baldie Ramses but, when Seti dies, baldie Ramses takes over as Pharaoh and turns out to be a bit of a petulant bully. BatMoses turns out to be a Hebrew, and takes it upon himself to get baldie Ramses to release 400,000 Hebrew slaves so that they can wander home to Canaan, to the annoyance of his (BatMoses) Spanish wife. This proposal doesn't go down well with baldie Ramses as he has an extensive redevelopment programme going on in downtown Memphis (Egypt, not Tennessee), which does not include street lighting despite the Egyptian desert being curiously dark. BatMoses gets helpful hints on how to proceed from God, who only he can see (God has decided that he will achieve maximum credibility if he takes the form of a peevish 11 year-old lad with a speech impediment). Baldie Ramses eventually lets the Hebrews go after a bit of murder on God's part, which is only fair given that there was a bit of murder on baldie Ramses' part too, and BatMoses leads the Hebrews on a gentle stroll beside the seaside which turns out to be rather more dramatic than anyone expected. Eventually, after many visits to the Straggly Hebrew Beard And Wig Shoppe, BatMoses leads the Hebrews to a bit of desert which looks the same as every other bit of desert, still with no street lighting.
There are no huge surprises here. Neither Moses nor Ramses comes across as at all sympathetic: only Seti (a surprisingly well cast John Turturro) is likable. God is truly annoying. The plagues are done well: in fact, the visuals are well done apart from everything being so dark. Perhaps it was the 3D specs, perhaps the projector needed a new bulb, but even the scenes in full desert sunlight looked dim. Christian Bale's BatMoses has an odd accent, which wavers between English and a variation of his BatRoar. These people are pros, so they aren't bad, but there is nothing here which screams "Oscar".
Ridley Scott reliably gets great visuals on screen, and disappoints with a lack of substance behind them. I was hoping this would be better.
There are no huge surprises here. Neither Moses nor Ramses comes across as at all sympathetic: only Seti (a surprisingly well cast John Turturro) is likable. God is truly annoying. The plagues are done well: in fact, the visuals are well done apart from everything being so dark. Perhaps it was the 3D specs, perhaps the projector needed a new bulb, but even the scenes in full desert sunlight looked dim. Christian Bale's BatMoses has an odd accent, which wavers between English and a variation of his BatRoar. These people are pros, so they aren't bad, but there is nothing here which screams "Oscar".
Ridley Scott reliably gets great visuals on screen, and disappoints with a lack of substance behind them. I was hoping this would be better.