"In “Exodus,” the plagues are fun, briefly, and that’s about it. At least, the prospect of the plagues presents the promise of fun: “Eww, gross, a massive pile of frogs,” or: “Aww, yeah, here come the locusts.” But like so much else in the film, these potentially thrilling sequences of havoc and terror evolve into enormous swarms digitally divorced from their effect on humanity. (The boils, though–they remain. And they’re nasty.) It certainly doesn’t help that Christian Bale plays Moses in mostly stiff and detached fashion. (But hey, at least he’s more intelligible here than he is as a grumbling and tormented Batman). Here, he’s a quietly capable leader –a general among men, and in the eyes of the Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro), who raised Moses as his adopted son, clearly more capable to take over the kingdom than his own biological son, the preening and egotistical Ramses (Joel Edgerton). Despite the thick eyeliner, the shiny, bald pate and the radiant golden wardrobe, Edgerton is never quite flamboyant enough. He could have gone over the top with the role and helped breathe some life into this picture. He seems sadly uncomfortable."