Unless you’re a troglodyte living under a rock for the last six months or so, you’d have figured out that Hollywood has gone Biblical on all our asses. Forget Superman, Spider-man, Captain America and X-Men – deep down in the hearts of hardcore, dyed-in-the-wool, Bible-worshippin’ Christians, they stand no chance against the indestructible übermensch that populate the God book, and they’re making quite a huge comeback for the evangelical belt of America to stand up and sing gospel choirs to (or turn cinemas into churches). First we had Super-Jesus in Christopher Spencer’s Son of God, then Super-Noah in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and next in the cavalcade is Ridley Scott’s Bible movie Exodus: Gods and Kings, which features none other than your favourite staff-wielding, sea-parting, Jew-liberating Old Testament rockstar Super Moses (played by Christian Bale, who will – by the looks of it – ruin your childhood memories of a bronzed-up, saintly-looking Charlton Heston in a red robe in Cecil B. DeMille’s unequivocal 1959 excess The Ten Commandments).
Just so you know, Moses was actually an action star, slashing these goddamned Egyptians that stood in his way – so claims, Ridley Scott, despite the prophet preaching Taboo Number One in God’s stone-tablet rulebook, “Thou shalt not kill.” And everyone from Sir Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver and Joel Edgerton (who will play the badass Ramses) all get to wear eyeliners for added authenticity.
Images courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.
Exodus: Gods and Kings will be released on Christmas. Perfect timing for Christian merrymaking in the Oscars.
And after that, we’d all be subjected to a deluge of upcoming Bible movie projects that’ll set the town like a plague – Mary Mother of God (a prequel to Mel Gibson’s bloodlusty The Passion of the Christ), Will Smith’s Abel and Cain movie, Brad Pitt’s Pontius Pilate take, which is enough to make the following twelve months feel like one long Sunday service you just want to get out of.
Because no one in Hollywood wants to make a film about the Prophet Muhammad, Bible movies are here to stay (tough shit, non-Christian Americans!) and Hollywood is churning out one after another like it’s the 1950s. And nothing spells desperation when the world’s biggest movie factory turns to the Bible for creative inspiration. So fasten your chastity belts, y’all, the apocalypse is here.
And to make that plague bearable, here’s 10 Things I Hate About Commandment, the glorious spoof to the grandaddy of Bible movies.
