In Exodus 9:13-16, the Lord Yahweh said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
This is the purpose of the exodus, as chronicled in the second book of the Bible, that we might know God’s mercy toward His people and His wrath against His enemies so that His name would be exalted. Unfortunately, the makers of the animated musical epic The Prince of Egypt missed the point. Rather than giving praise to Yahweh, Israel’s redeemer and the central figure in the book of Exodus, they minimized God’s presence and made the story about two brothers with conflicting ambition.
This past Saturday, December 16, was the 25th anniversary of the release of The Prince of Egypt in theaters. I decided to go back and revisit the movie, which I haven’t seen in perhaps a decade, and write a review from a biblical perspective. Although I liked the film—the music and animation are spectacular, the acting stellar, and the writing superb—I must critique this as a pastor faithful to the word of God, which the movie is not.
Some are quick to say that The Prince of Egypt is at least more faithful than other Bible movies. It’s certainly a much better film than the last Bible-based musical that I critiqued, Journey to Bethlehem, so much that it’s an insult to put The Prince of Egypt in the same category.
However, we don’t weigh Bible movies against other Bible movies. We are to test all things according to the word of God. That must be our standard. The Prince of Egypt either seeks to uphold God’s word, or it doesn’t. Unfortunately, you will find the latter to be the case.
In fact, this is less an adaptation from the book of Exodus and more a remake of the Cecil B. DeMil classic, The Ten Commandments, the 1956 film starring Charlton Heston as Moses. Pharaoh, played by Yul Brynner, was given the name Rameses in that movie, and that name is carried over in The Prince of Egypt. According producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, it was Steven Spielberg who recommended to him that he do an animated remake of The Ten Commandments. Perhaps I’ll revisit that film sometime.
As I did with Journey to Bethlehem, I wrote this as I watched the movie. This is expanded from the live-post that I did on social media. The movie is 1 hr and 38 minutes long. Time markers are given.
Prologue – Moses is Rescued
0:45 – Like other Bible adaptations such as The Chosen and Journey to Bethlehem, this film opens with the following disclaimer: “The motion picture you are about to see is an adaptation of the Exodus story. While artistic and historical license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values, and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Moses can be found in the book of Exodus.”
I remember liking this movie, but that doesn’t sell it for me. Are the creators at Dreamworks God-fearing Bible believers? No. They are going to give us a version of this story they think is “better” than what the Bible says. It may be an entertaining re-imagining of this story, but it is not a biblically faithful one.
According to the film’s trivia on IMDb.com, “The production team and executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg conferred with roughly 600 religious experts to make this movie as accurate and faithful to the original story as possible. After previewing the developing movie, all of the religious scholars, experts, and leaders associated in the making of this movie noted that the studio executives listened and responded to their ideas, and praised the studio for reaching out for comment from outside sources.”
We shouldn’t be impressed that 600 “experts” were consulted on this film when Katzenberg and the film’s creators needed only one authoritative source—the Bible. What does the Bible say?
1:30 – The music is already exceptionally better than Journey to Bethlehem. And of course it is. The score is by Hans Zimmer, one of the greatest film composers of all time (after John Williams).
3:00 – The film opens with the song Deliver Us, set to scenes of Israelites being beaten as slaves, forced to labor in the hot Egyptian sand, building the structures, monuments, and idols of what was then one of the most formidable empires on earth.
In Deliver Us, enslaved Israel calls on Elohim to “deliver us to the Promised Land.” While the people certainly cried out in anguish (Exodus 3:7), they did not call on God to bring them to the Promised Land. God had mercy because He was faithful to His promise He made to Abraham.
4:00 – Jochebed and two of her older children are seen smuggling Moses down to the Nile River as Deliver Us comes to a close. Great song.
5:30 – Jochebed sings The River Lullaby. Gracious, these songs are amazing.
6:30 – It is a common myth to depict Moses in a basket floating up the Nile. It makes for good cinema as the basket is tossed to and fro, in between boats and even dodging hippos. In fact, Exodus 2:3 says that Moses was simply placed in a basket (or ark) and set in the reeds on the river bank, while his sister stood nearby to see what would happen to it.
(By the way, everything floats up the Nile, not down, since the river flows north. I still remember that from grade school geography.)
8:10 – The basket floats into an area where the palace steps descend into the waters of the Nile for bathing. Pharaoh’s wife opens the basket and finds the baby Moses, with her toddler son Rameses nearby. She takes Moses into the palace as a young Miriam, Moses’ sister, sings that he will grow up to “deliver us someday.” The music swells for a final reprise of Deliver Us, and we’re given an areal view of Egypt. Great scene.
Of course, the reason Moses was hidden was not so he would be delivered from slavery or grow up to deliver his people. It’s because Pharaoh was murdering all of the Hebrew baby boys. That will be mentioned later in the story. Also, it was not Pharaoh’s wife who found Moses but his daughter (Exodus 2:5). I’ll expound on this more in a moment.
Though this is never said, the movie appears to take the liberal view that the Exodus occurred in the 13th century B.C., when according to Scripture, the Exodus took place in the 15th century B.C. I recommend looking up the documentary Patterns of Evidence: Exodus, presenting solid historical evidence that confirms what the Bible says.
Act I – Moses in Egypt
8:40 – Moses and Rameses (adopted brothers in this film) are racing chariots. They pass hieroglyphics on the wall. Moses says, “How would you like to see your face on a wall?” Rameses says, “Someday, yes.” Moses says, “How about now?” And runs him into the wall. O, brothers.
11:45 – Antics ensue. While racing, they wreck a few monuments in Egypt (which is surprisingly not busy nor very populated). The Pharaoh Seti is displeased and gives them a stern rebuke in his best Patrick Stewart voice (it is Patrick Stewart).
13:30 – Seti, scolding his son, says, “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty.” That’s a line that will come back later. Rameses storms off heartbroken. The animation is quite amazing. Characters, when not doing anything, don’t stand motionless. There are such nuanced movements.
18:00 – There’s a celebration in which Rameses is appointed co-regent, in charge of all temples. He appoints Moses as his chief architect. A Midian woman is given to Moses as a gift, Zipporah, who will eventually become Moses’ wife (Exodus 2:21). Zipporah is being mistreated as a slave woman, and Moses joins in the mockery. Then he notices his Egyptian mother is hurt by his behavior, so Moses tries to treat Zipporah more kindly.
Zipporah tries to pull away from him and says, “Let me go!” He says, “As you wish,” and lets go of the rope she’s tied with. Zipporah falls into the water and the crowd laughs. Rameses orders that Zipporah is to be taken to Moses’ chambers.
19:30 – Moses allows Zipporah to escape and follows her, but he’s never able to catch up. In his pursuit, he encounters his siblings, Aaron and Miriam, but he doesn’t know them. Every character is voiced by a major star. Moses: Val Kilmer. Rameses: Ralph Fiennes. Zipporah: Michelle Pfeifer. Miriam: Sandra Bullock. Aaron: Jeff Goldblum.
21:20 – Miriam tells Moses that he’s their deliverer who will save them from slavery. Actually, not even Moses’ family had that expectation of him. They were just trying to save him from being killed. According to Exodus 2:9-10, Moses’ own mother nursed and raised him until he reached a certain age, and then he was sent to live as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, growing up in the palace.
22:20 – Moses is furious with Miriam for saying he’s not a prince of Egypt. Given that he was raised by his own mother, Moses would have known who he was. That aside, ethnically he’s have recognized he was a Hebrew and not an Egyptian. Miriam sings the river lullaby that his mother sang to him at the start of the movie. He remembers the song and runs away.
24:20 – Finishing the short song All I Ever Wanted. I did not remember this song. Though I know the movie isn’t going to do it, I think it would have been great to have a song that somehow incorporated the words of Hebrews 10:24-26.
“By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”
25:50 – Moses has a dream, brilliantly animated in the style of hieroglyphics. He sees the people of Israel being tormented by the Egyptians. Babies are torn from their mothers and thrown into the Nile. You don’t see them explicitly murdered, but you know that’s what happened. Tastefully done for a cartoon. This won’t be the most harrowing scene in the movie.
27:40 – Moses runs into one of the palaces and sees the hieroglyphics showing babies of slaves thrown into the Nile. Very unlikely that the Egyptians would have told this story in their hieroglyphics, but it is an effective scene.
Seti finds him there and tells him that the Hebrews were becoming too numerous. “Sometimes for the greater good, sacrifices need to be made,” he says. When that doesn’t convince Moses, Seti says, “They were only slaves.” The music drops and Moses is appalled. Wonderfully done.
I cannot help but think about how Seti represents the evils of environmentalism and abortion. Ten years ago, The Guardian ran a headline in which they claimed, “Humans [are] the real threat to life on Earth.” A few years later, they said, “Empty half the Earth of its humans. It’s the only way to save the planet.” Earlier this year, Scientific American said, “Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better.”
This is not too unlike Margaret Sanger, founder of America’s largest abortion provider Planned Parenthood, who said, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Tens of millions of babies have been murdered in America by abortion. The feminists will say, “They were only tissue.” They are as evil as Pharaoh in Egypt.
29:10 – Moses has a moment with his Egyptian mother and asks her, “Why did you choose me?” She says, “We didn’t. The gods did.” This is a thought-provoking exchange. Moses would surely have been raised to worship the Egyptian gods, something Scripture doesn’t delve into.
31:10 – Moses, overseeing construction, sees slaves being beaten. One slave is excessively whipped. Moses goes to stop the task master, but he accidentally knocks him off the scaffolding and he dies. According to Exodus 2:12, Moses deliberately killed him and hid the body.
33:15 – Having just killed a man, Moses flees Egypt. Rameses tries to stop him, even declaring Moses innocent of the matter. However, Exodus 2:15 says that when Pharaoh heard Moses had killed an Egyptian, he sought to have Moses executed. That was why Moses fled to Midian. In this film, it seems like Moses’ motivation for leaving is less about killing a man and more because he cannot stand to see his people tortured.
Moses in Midian
35:00 – We’re given a montage of Moses fleeing across deserted lands.
37:20 – As Moses wanders through the wilderness, he discovers a camel—or rather, he is discovered by a camel—which has a water bag hanging from its gear. In an attempt to get the water, Moses gets tangled in the camel and is dragged to a well. While drinking he sees some children being tormented by brigands and he saves them. Then in his weariness, he falls into a well.
Zipporah comes along and tries to pull him out, but when she recognizes him, she drops him back in the water—a little payback after Moses had done the same to her earlier in the movie. Her sister says, “Papa says that’s why she’ll never get married.”
39:10 – Moses meets Jethro, voiced by Danny Glover—except when he starts singing, then he’s voiced by someone else (Brian Stokes Mitchell). Almost all of these characters have two actors: one for their speaking voice, and one for their singing voice.
If Mitchell is a Tony Award winning Broadway actor, why not have him voice Jethro’s speaking voice as well instead of Danny Glover? In fact, I believe Glover has only three lines, whereas Mitchell has a whole song. Seems like a completely unnecessary expense having all these major stars, especially when this is a musical and most of these stars can’t sing.
42:00 – Finishing the song Through Heaven’s Eyes. The chorus goes, “How can you see what your life is worth or where your value lies? You can never see through the eyes of man, you must look at your life through heaven’s eyes.”
Of course, if you truly looked at yourself through heaven’s eyes, you would see that you have “become worthless.” Romans 3:12 says exactly that. It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we are made worthy. God will have mercy on whom He has mercy (Exodus 33:19).
43:00 – The burning bush scene is coming up. The song presented a montage of Moses getting older, growing a beard, becoming a shepherd, and marrying Zipporah. According to Scripture, Moses was 40 when he fled to Midian and 80 at the burning bush. He’s maybe 40 in this scene.
44:30 – I always loved this depiction of the burning bush: as on fire, but it’s not really fire. However, Moses touches it before God speaks to him, and we know that wouldn’t have happened. Moses saw that the bush burning but wasn’t being consumed, and God said to him, “Moses, do not come near” (Exodus 3:5).
47:45 – The bush is back to normal and Moses is in tears, in awe of having just encountered the great “I Am,” the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The scene is only 3 minutes, so of course not every word God says in Exodus chapters 3-4 is included. It’s abbreviated, but what is there is well done. Overall, I really like the scene, a favorite of the cinematic burning bush scenes.
As an aside, the worst depiction of the burning bush I have ever seen was in the 2014 Ridley Scott disaster, Exodus: Gods and Kings. I reviewed that film here. I don’t recommend it at all—terrible movie aside from its Bible twisting.
Here’s a fun bit of trivia for you… Two actors have played Moses, God, and Batman. Do you know which two actors they are? I’ll give you the answer in a moment.
49:50 – Moses explains to Zipporah why he’s going back to Egypt: “You’re family is free. They have hopes and dreams and a life with dignity. That is what I want for my people. That is why I must do the task that God has given me.” Yeah, that wasn’t Moses’ motivation. This is the end of Act I.
After my critiques of The Chosen and Journey to Bethlehem, or when I’ve reviewed other Bible adaptations like Risen and The Young Messiah, I’m often criticized for being opposed to any dramatic or artistic license, where an artist deviates from fact or form for dramatic or artistic purposes.
On the contrary, I take lots of artistic license. Every song we sing unto the Lord is an exercise in artistic license. Even if you’re an exclusive psalmodist, meaning that your church sings exclusively from the Psalms, you still take artistic license because we do not know what the original tunes to the Psalms sounded like.
I don’t have any problem with theorizing the “what if” elements Scripture doesn’t tell us about. But those “what ifs” still have to agree with what Scripture does tell us. I like how this movie expounds upon Moses and Zipporah’s relationship. They don’t have any children though, and at the time Moses returned to Egypt he had at least one son, Gershom, and perhaps Eliezer as well. We know eventually Moses sent Zipporah back to Midian and they were reunited after the exodus in chapter 18. That aside, their romance in this story is a welcome exercise in imagination.
Regarding Moses’ relationship with Pharaoh, the Bible doesn’t tell us that Moses and Pharaoh knew one another prior to the exodus, so that’s an interesting theory to consider. In The Ten Commandments, Moses and Rameses were rivals; here in The Prince of Egypt, they’re brothers.
However, I don’t understand how any of these changes make the story “better.” What makes Moses’ history with Pharaoh more interesting than his relationship with his actual brother, Aaron? The way the film treats Aaron is a terrible deviation from the biblical narrative. I remember thinking that when I saw this film as a teenager. Aaron is an antagonist to Moses in this movie when in Exodus he received his brother with joy.
Most artistic variations are not as compelling as they’re made out to be. Most of the time, they’re just lazy. Creators may take creative license by adding or embellishing on an element of the narrative—like, say, showing Moses having a heartfelt mother/son conversation with his Egyptian mother—but that’s another element the story tellers have to resolve while still aspiring to be faithful to the source material.
After Moses leaves Egypt, the queen is never seen again. Convenient for the filmmakers, but a plot hole, nonetheless, when the writers have made this story about Moses and Rameses. What happens to their mother? Moses will come back to Egypt to find Rameses has become Pharaoh, and Moses is even excited for him. But he never asks about their mother? Of course, the queen wasn’t his real mother, but as far as Moses is concerned, she’s the only mother he’s ever known. The movie has invited us into a small part of their relationship. So it’s lazy that Moses never asks about his adopted mother nor grieves for her.
This is an area where the script writers could have taken dramatic license and still have been faithful to the text. What happened to Moses’ mother in the midst of the events that took place leading up to the exodus? Scripture suggests that some of the Egyptians may have left with the Israelites (Exodus 12:38). What if Moses’ Egyptian mother, in reality a daughter of a Pharoah, was one of them? What would it have been like for her to be reunited with Jochebed, his actual mother?
We did not need this movie to be about Moses and Pharaoh as brothers. First of all, Pharaoh was a despot, not a sympathetic character. God raised him up to tear him down, as Scripture says, in order to demonstrate God’s power in the earth. But second, the brothers idea had already been explored in the film The Ten Commandments. Why not consider Moses and Aaron’s relationship? Missed opportunities by the filmmakers, I believe. Did none of their 600 spiritual advisors have any good ideas—they were just there to kiss the Hollywood ring?
So lest anyone think I’m always opposed to dramatic license, I’m opposed to when taking such license conflicts with or altogether contradicts what the Bible says. The most unbiblical problems with the film are coming up in Act II. But also, as a paying audience member, I really don’t like lazy story telling. Anyway, on with the film.
Act II – Moses Returns to Egypt
51:00 – Zipporah travels with Moses to Egypt. It’s a shame we didn’t get the scene where God met Moses on the way to kill him, so Zipporah circumcised Moses’ oldest son and placed the foreskin at Moses’ feet (Exodus 4:24-26). Oh well.
Also not included is Aaron meeting Moses to address the people, as in Exodus 4:27-29. When God told Moses to go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” Moses tried to make excuses: “I am slow of speech and of tongue,” he said (Exodus 4:10). Scripture says the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and the movie demonstrated that at the burning bush.
But then God told Moses to meet up with his brother Aaron: “You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth,” God said. “He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.” But no such dynamic exists in this movie.
53:00 – Moses stands before Rameses, who is now Pharaoh. They have a touching moment of being reunited. Rameses pardons him for any wrongs he may have done and declares Moses “a prince of Egypt.” But Moses tells Rameses God has sent him to tell Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” It’s a great scene. But of course, Moses would have been 80, and Pharaoh would not have been the same Pharaoh as when Moses fled Egypt (which I suppose is true of this movie as well).
It’s possible they may have known each other, or at least known of each other, but it is unlikely that Pharaoh was someone Moses knew as close as he knows Rameses in this movie. It was not uncommon for a Pharaoh to have dozens of children with multiple wives, and remember Moses was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. He’d not have been as close to the throne or to Pharaoh as Moses is in the film.
56:00 – Moses holds up his staff and says, “Behold, the power of God,” and it turns into a serpent. Rameses is not impressed and “plays along,” having his magicians duplicate the miracle. The magicians (played by Steve Martin and Martin Short) sing Playing With the Big Boys Now. This could have been a much better song, on par with something like Be Prepared (Scar in The Lion King) or Friend Like Me (the Genie in Aladdin). Wasted opportunity with the talents of Martin and Short as the vocalists. So far it’s the only disappointing song of the movie.
59:20 – Moses and Rameses have a moment alone. Moses tries to reason with him. Rameses finally says, “I do not know this God of yours, nor will I let your people go,” somewhat like Exodus 5:2. Moses begs him to reconsider. Rameses fires back, “I will not be the weak link!” Before leaving, he says, “Tell your people that as of today, their work load has been doubled. Thanks to your God. Or is it thanks to you?”
You may not think of two voice actors having chemistry in an animated movie, but Kilmer and Fiennes are quite good together.
61:30 – Because the slaves are forced to work harder, the Hebrews are angry at Moses. Aaron leads in mocking him. Again, it is completely unnecessary for the film’s creators to deviate from the biblical narrative this much. Exodus 4:14 says that Aaron was glad to see his brother. Aaron was the one who first said to Pharaoh, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go'” (Exodus 5:1).
Perhaps the filmmakers are trying to highlight Moses as the hero, and if they give some of the bigger moments to Aaron—like saying, “Let my people go,” or turning the Nile into blood, etc.—then it takes away from Moses’ grandeur. But again, Exodus is not about Moses—it’s about God.
We often think of the Exodus story like we think of a western. Pharaoh is the bad guy in the black hat. Even many of the Egyptians suffer as a result of his badness (which the film does show). The Israelites are the oppressed good guys. Then Moses comes riding into Egypt wearing a white hat. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s there to clean up this place, winning a shoot out with the bad guy.
But that isn’t Exodus. Everyone is bad in Exodus. The only one who is righteous is God. He saves Israel not because Israel is being oppressed or because they are righteous, but because God is faithful to His promises. No matter how bad we are, God is merciful to save His people. Dreamworks scriptwriters, producers, directors, actors, and animators cannot tell a better story than God has told. There’s plenty of drama already in the narrative. Stick with what the Bible says.
65:10 – Moses strikes the Nile and it turns to blood. But Pharaoh’s magicians are able to duplicate the same miracle (sort of). The Hebrews aren’t hopeful, but Moses encourages them to have faith. “We will see God’s wonders,” he says.
68:00 – We’re given a montage of the plagues striking Egypt: frogs, flies, flaming hail stones, boils, etc. But we’re given no explanation about the plagues. This part of the movie really assumes the viewer knows what’s happening. The film is only an hour and a half—they really could have done more with the plagues, featuring more moments between Moses and Pharaoh. At the end of the song, darkness covers Egypt, but not the Hebrews. Moses goes to visit Rameses one more time.
71:00 – Rameses’ son enters and spoils their moment. He says, “What’s he doing here? Isn’t that the man who is causing all of this?” Rameses says, “Yes. And one must wonder why.” Moses says, “Because no kingdom should be made on the backs of slaves.”
Again, that’s not the reason. The reason is given in Exodus 9, as I quoted in the beginning, and it is repeated again by Paul in Romans 9. We read in verse 17, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'”
Instead of exalting the sovereignty of God, the film resorts to liberation theology, the idea that all of this is happening to liberate the oppressed. There were millions of oppressed people in the world at this time. But God had made a covenant with Abraham, to bring his descendants into a Promised Land for His glory. Again, back to Exodus 5:1 where Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh, “Thus says, the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.'” And in Exodus 9:13, God said, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.”
72:15 – Moses tries to tell Rameses that his stubbornness is why the plagues continue. Something worse is coming if he doesn’t let the people go. Rameses threatens to distroy the Hebrew children as his father had tried to do. Moses says, “Rameses, you bring this upon yourself.”
The line Rameses throws out is, “There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again.” That’s actually what God said about the coming plague, when the angel of death struck down the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus 11:6). I’m not sure why the script writers gave that line to Pharaoh.
The only time God speaks in this movie is at the burning bush. Any other dialogue attributed to God is just Moses recalling what God had previously told him. In the book of Exodus, God speaks more than any other person in the narrative.
75:15 – I will give this to the filmmakers, they do not sugar coat nor softball the Passover. This is an effective and frightening scene. You actually see children die, one of which was laying in bed right next to his mother. My 9 year old daughter, who was watching with me, said, “This is scary.” It’s more difficult to watch than the scene of Pharaoh killing the Hebrew children. The wrath of God is more terrifying than any earthly tyrant. Repent and turn to Christ to be saved.
76:30 – Rameses, whose son is dead, tells Moses to take his people and get out of Egypt. Moses attempts to console Rameses (very unlikely that Moses would have tried to do such a thing). Rameses mourns, but when Moses is gone, hatred fills his face. Wailing is heard in Egypt. As Exodus 12:30 says, “There was not a house where someone was not dead,” except among the Hebrews who were covered by the blood of the Passover lamb.
77:30 – Moses finds a place to be alone and weeps. He slowly saunters home to be greeted by Zipporah and Miriam. Unlikely that this would have gone this way. The moment Rameses said, “Leave,” they would have departed immediately, as God had commanded. He told Israel they were to eat the Passover lamb “with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand,” ready to go the moment Pharaoh said, “Leave.”
Pharaoh’s exact words were these: “Up, go out form among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also” (Exodus 12:31-32).
82:00 – Miriam and Zippora sing the Oscar winning song When You Believe while Israel leaves Egypt. The transition is kind of weird. They leave sad at first, but as the song builds they’re rejoicing that they are free. The exodus in The Ten Commandments was done better.
For all of the fantastic music in this movie, When You Believe is not one of the highlights. Deliver Us and The River Lullaby were better. The chorus of this song goes:
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail, it’s hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe
On the contrary, God did all of His wonders in Egypt though the Israelites did not believe. Again, this story is not about Moses and Pharaoh or the Israelites and the faith they had that God would save them. Exodus is about Yahweh, as the whole Bible is about Yahweh. He will be glorified by destroying the wicked and saving whom He means to save. Israel achieved nothing. God did everything.
Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” You did not believe when God had mercy on you. It’s because of His mercy that you now believe. As the saying goes, you contribute nothing to your salvation but the sin that made it necessary. God is the one who saves.
85:00 – The parting of the Red Sea is phenomenal. The music, the animation… This has got to be the best version of this scene. According to the film’s trivia, this three minute scene alone took 10 animators 2 years to complete.
85:50 – There’s an image of what looks like a blue whale swimming on one side of the Red Sea. But the tale is vertical rather than horizontal. I vote that it’s a Megaladon.
87:30 – The Egyptian soldiers pursue the Israelites into the Red Sea. The walls of the sea begin coming down on them. Pharaoh is tossed out by the force of the water and onto the rocks. The rest of the army is drowned. Such an incredible scene and one of the most underrated climaxes in any movie.
My 12 year old son just said, “Wow… They did an incredible job on that water. That looked really good.” My 9 year old daughter chimed in, “They should have taken more time on the story.” My kids, ladies and gentlemen.
88:50 – The people rejoice. Aaron hugs Moses, Miriam hugs Zipporah. This calls for a song! Exodus 15 anyone? When Moses and Israel rejoiced in Yahweh for killing the Egyptian armies? No? Of course not. Because that would make God the focus of this movie, and we can’t have that.
89:50 – Pharaoh calls out Moses’ name in anger in the distance. Moses, looking out over the sea, says, “Goodbye, brother.”
Back to my trivia question from earlier: which two actors have played Moses, God, and Batman? The answer is Val Kilmer and Christian Bale. Kilmer is Moses and the voice of God in this movie, and he played Batman in the abysmal Batman Forever. Christian Bale played Jesus in the 1999 film Mary, Mother of Jesus (which I’ve never seen), Batman in The Dark Knight trilogy, and Moses in the aforementioned Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), which I do not recommend.
91:30 – Zipporah says, “Look at your people, Moses. They are free.” He smiles. Scene fades to him carrying the ten commandments down from the mountain (we know that’s what we’re seeing, even thought that isn’t actually said). A woman sings, “Deliver us!”
End film.
So as I said, I like the movie. Obviously, I even watched it with my kids. However, I cannot recommend the movie, nor do I ever recommend any Bible movies. Watch it if you want to, but no one needs to. It’s not a better story than the one God has told, nor does this movie point anyone to God.
The book of Exodus points us to Jesus Christ, the true Passover lamb who shed His blood for us by His death on the cross, that by faith in Him we would be saved from the wrath of God. Rising again from the dead, He will raise up His people on the last day, and we will dwell with Him forever in glory—our Promised Land.
For the short version of this review, watch this 90-second video.
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