Film Review: Exodus: Gods and Kings

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Exodus: Gods and Kings. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 150 minutes. Directed by Ridley Scott. Screenplay by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian.

Verdict: A sumptuous visual feast that brings nothing new to the age-old contest.

Since time immemorial, The Bible’s New and Old Testaments have provided film-makers with a rich tapestry of spiritually-charged adventures on a grand scale. It was the legendary Cecil B DeMille who first filmed the story of Moses and The Ten Commandments in 1923 as a silent epic, before revisiting the story in 1956 with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as his ‘brother’, Pharaoh Rameses of Egypt.

For his lavish account of the epic, faith-based contest between Moses (Christian Bale), Rameses (Joel Edgerton) and God’s messenger, Malak (11-year-old Isaac Andrews), Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Prometheus) has created a sumptuous visual feast that is simply breath-taking in its scale of cinematic wonder. The work of his Prometheus collaborators – cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, Production Designer Arthur Max, and Costume Designer Janty Yates – is nothing less than awe-inspiring. And while everyone wears far too much make-up (especially eye-liner), Exodus never looks less than magnificent.

The screenplay, though, doesn’t do anyone any favours, with Edgerton’s Rameses reduced to a thinly-drawn, snappy, inarticulate and petulant man/child. Bale gradually rises to meet the demands of his role as the great prophet and saviour of the enslaved Israelites, and his realisation that his God has not abandoned him, just as The Red Sea begins to part, is about as good as the acting gets.

What remains troubling about the experience of this film is how Scott fails to bring any new insights about this well-known battle of faith and self-belief into consideration. At a time where faith of any description is increasingly difficult to maintain, the opportunity to challenge us about the role faith might play in our lives is wasted completely. Faith, after all, is about how we feel, not how we look.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby. Rated M (mature themes and violence). 142 minutes. Directed by Baz Luhrmann. Screenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce. Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Verdict: A magnificent achievement from start to finish.

It is curious to consider that F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing his seminal work The Great Gatsby to have been a failure. Only posthumously did his novel become considered as ‘the great American novel’ – such was the impact of the cracked mirror Fitzgerald held up to those in pursuit of unimaginable wealth and glamour, which is all too conveniently referred to as ‘the American dream’.

It is not quite as curious that it should be one of Australia’s big picture dreamers who takes the novel on. Luhrmann’s preposterous ambition for this film incises the novel’s grand themes of hope, optimism and the desolation of a life-long infatuation and lays the threads that both unite and divide us bare in scene after scene of artfully considered cinematic mastery. The finely-wrought screenplay, written with his constant collaborator Pearce, is flawless – and utterly enthralling for every one of its 142 minutes.

The production and costume design from Catherine Martin, Luhrmann’s creative soulmate and constant collaborator, is magnificent – recreating the 1920s with such an alarming level of dazzling, hyper-realistic creativity that it is, at times, simply overwhelming. Martin’s world for this film is both lovingly and carefully considered, and as true to the era as it is possible to imagine for people who never experienced it.

Leonardo DiCaprio, (who first worked with Luhrmann in Romeo and Juliet) delivers a beautiful performance as the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby, whose obsession with winning back the love of his life, Daisy Buchanan (a perfect Carey Mulligan), leads him and everyone involved in his pyrotechnical life to the brink of emotional ruin.

Tobey Maguire is outstanding as the narrator Nick Carraway, delivering a performance of wide-eyed wonder in the face of the increasingly disconcerting influence of the obscenely privileged people that surround his innocent, uncomplicated existence. The standout performance, though, is that of Joel Edgerton, whose morally-bankrupt Tom Buchanan strides and procrastinates through the story like a raging bull from a bygone age. And as his self-righteousness suffocates everyone around him, the real sting in Fitzgerald’s tale becomes less about the perils of soul-less wealth and glamour but more about who it is in our lives who would prefer to see us absolutely fail than succeed beyond our wildest dreams.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.