"That’s not to say faith leaders are going to urge congregations to flock to the theatres, however. Scott offers a secular out for every instance of the legendarily miraculous. Thus, the burning bush and everything that follows can be attributed to Moses (Bale, well-cast with his glower dialed up to 11) getting conked on the head by a falling rock after he’s cast out of Egypt by Pharaoh Ramses (Edgerton, resplendent in gold and kohl). There’s a wonderfully droll scene in Ramses’ court as his physician (Bremner, Trainspotting’s Spud) attempts to explain the finer points of how one plague logically leads to the next, via what we now call “bacteria.” Scott and his quartet of writers squeeze the Book of Exodus down to its most basic tenets, rendering it both a story of God-crossed pseudo-siblings and a thunderous series of generally awesome (as in “awe-inspiring”), CGI-assisted, action set-pieces. The parting of the Red Sea is preceded by a shot of Moses sleepily catching a glimpse of what appears to be a meteor crashing far out into the waves, which raises the question: Yahweh or tsunami? Or both? It doesn’t matter; the watery result is everything “epic” should be."