By Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., at www.albertmohler.com
Timed for a Christmas season release, director Ridley Scott’s intended blockbuster, Exodus: Gods and Kings hit the big screens this past weekend. On its opening weekend the movie shot to the top of the box office charts, displacing the latest Hunger Games movie, but falling considerably short of expected receipts.
The best single line analysis of the movie and its failure to garner either critical acclaim or more viewers was offered by Eric D. Snider of GeekNation: “This big dud isn’t blasphemous enough to be outrageous, emotional enough to be inspiring, or interesting enough to be good.”
Well, I partly agree with the first two points of criticism, but I did find the movie interesting. Indeed, I even liked much of the movie, and I would not argue that mature and thoughtful Christians should not see it, even if the concerns about it are major. And make no mistake, the concerns are major.
Earlier this year, director Darren Aronofsky offended the faithful with his distorted depiction of Noah. Aronofsky’s Noah offered a portrait of Noah as a crazed homicidal maniac who hallucinated God’s will after drinking a potion given to him by Methuselah. Humanity itself is depicted as a blight upon the earth and the director himself bragged that his movie was “the least Biblical biblical film ever made.”
Ridley Scott’s Moses is not in the same category, largely because there are so many details of the Exodus narrative in the Bible with which the director simply had to deal.