THE true authorship of the second book in the Christian Bible is not known. Its veracity comes in spurts interspersed with legend. It took four writers to massage Chapters 1 to 14 into a screenplay for director Ridley Scott to turn into 150 minutes of movie.

The film’s first third explains the falling out between military companions Moses (Christian Bale) and Rhamses (Joel Edgerton) when Rhamses, elevated to godhead in the Egyptian pantheon simply by becoming Pharaoh, felt that the Hebrews, captive in Egypt for four centuries as slaves, were getting uppity and might go on strike in pursuit of a better deal.

The next third deals with all those plagues that God visited on Egypt and God’s command to Moses to lead His chosen Hebrew people out of Egypt and back to their Promised Land.

The final section follows Moses and his people trekking east with Rhamses’ chariots in hot pursuit. The Red Sea parts to let the Hebrews cross before returning to drown Rhamses’ army. Spectacular stuff indeed!

There’s little overt religious proselytising in the film. Moses’ briefings from God don’t materialise the latter. Scott’s staging of the story’s most exciting bits looks impressive but wouldn’t have without CG.

At all cinemas