Exodus: Gods and Men was a movie I thought would be great, then terrible, and then okay. It ended up being pretty good. I am a massive fan of Christian Bale (The Dark Knight Rises, Out of the Furnace) and Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator). Bale has had numerous hits over the last decade. I’ve seen 13 of his previous 15 movies, and I’ve been a big fan of all of them. Once as reliable as they come, Scott has had some misses in recent years, most notably The Counselor and Robin Hood. Both of these movies should have been great, and both underwhelmed.
Bale plays the role of Moses. Say what you will about Bale, but he’s not afraid to venture outside the norm. He takes chances. I love him as an actor. In the last 5+ years, only a handful of actors have been better (DiCaprio, Pitt, Gosling, Gordon-Levitt, Michael Fassbender, Bradley Cooper, and Tom Hardy) come to mind. The traditional heavyweights outside DiCaprio and Pitt (Hanks, Will Smith, Washington, Cruise, Day-Lewis, De Niro, etc.) have dropped out of the spotlight. Others (Day-Lewis, Hanks) have fallen into the pattern of doing the same movie repeatedly (Tom Cruise saves the world, Denzel Washington saves a plane, a train, a subway, a boat from catastrophe, etc.). Others have gotten into the habit of just making movie after movie to earn a paycheck without the intent of making a great film (De Niro).