The new Christian Bale–led Biblical film updates Moses in every way except the most important one.

Christian Bale in Exodus: Gods and Kings

Twentieth Century Fox

Exodus: Gods and Kings updates the story of Moses in every way except the one that would actually be gutsy: race.

Ridley Scott's latest film attempts to do for Moses what Batman Begins did for its title superhero — give its saga a grim, brawny overhaul and place it in a more realistic world. In place of a revamped Batmobile and other comic book trappings, it has a revamped parting of the Red Sea, with men confronting each other as the tide rushes back in in the form of massive waves. Its version of ancient Egypt has been lightly dredged in mud and dust, the royal spaces airy and spacious, and slave quarters cramped and dark. Moses starts the film not by being fished out of the Nile as a baby but all grown-up as Christian Bale, strapping on armor and accompanying his brother Ramses (Australian actor Joel Edgerton) into an arrow-, chariot-, and sword-filled fight with the Hittites.

While Moses has been cast as an action hero, later training the Israelites in the ways of guerrilla warfare, the religious aspect to his story has been softened, leaving open the possibility that his communications with God are simply delusions, and that there are scientific explanations for the plagues. And the language has been stripped of biblical floweriness, and modernized in ways that yield some inadvertent laugh lines — "From an economic standpoint alone, what you're asking is problematic, to say the least," Ramses tells Moses in response to his demands that the Israelites be treated as citizens or released.

Joel Edgerton

Kerry Brown/Twentieth Century Fox

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