$9.99 (2 Stars)

This is the second Australian stop-motion film that I've watched today. The graphics are far superior to "Mary and Max", but what about the story?

The film derives its title from a book bought by Dave, a young man who's recently been fired from his job as a repo man. The book promises to tell the reader the meaning of life for the low price of $9.99. Before you say Wow, remember that the film takes place in Australia, and 9.99 Australian dollars is the equivalent of 6.70 American dollars. So it's a double Wow.

Now the problems start. We never find out what the meaning of life is. The story jumps from person to person in the building where Dave lives. His brother Lenny, a successful repo man, falls in love with a fashion model who likes men without bones. An old man is visited by an angel who can't fly. The wings are just for show. A boy saves money to buy a model footballer, but when it's time to break open the piggy bank he refuses, because he likes the pig more. Another man makes friends with three tiny men, three inches high, and shares his Belgian beer with them.

For me the film is too random. The film doesn't go anywhere. Does the price $9.99 signify the price of the film on DVD? Anyone who buys it must be disappointed. There is no meaning of life. Everything is absurd. The film is absurd. I'm more likely to find the meaning of life in a bottle of sherry.

The film hasn't been released on disc in England or America, but it's available in most European countries, including Germany.

The Green Knight (3 Stars)

This film is based on the epic poem  "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". For those who know the poem, the story ends differently. That's the only spoiler I'm giving you.

Gawain is the nephew of King Arthur. He's not yet a knight, so he isn't allowed to sit at the Round Table, but he's favoured by the King and is allowed to sit next to his throne.

On Christmas Day a green-skinned giant rides into the throne room. He offers to play a friendly game. Someone must strike him with a weapon, either a light blow or a hard blow. Next year on Christmas Day the person must visit him, and the giant will hit him exactly the same way, either a light blow or a hard blow. None of the knights volunteer, so Gawain says he'll hit the giant. King Arthur gives Gawain Excalibur, and Gawain cuts the giant's head off. The giant picks up his head and puts it back on his shoulders. He thanks Gawain, tells him where he lives and leaves.

The story continues the next year in December. Gawain travels northwards, facing adventures on the way. There are repeated magical and supernatural challenges.

The film is nothing like I expected. I thought it would be full of action, but it's slow moving, without any fight scenes. I found the film dull, despite the excellent acting by Dev Patel.

Red Sparrow (4 Stars)

"Red Sparrow" is a spy thriller that was made in 2018. It stars Jennifer Lawrence with dyed brown hair and a fake Russian accent.

Don't worry, she reverts to her natural hair colour later in the film.

She plays Dominika Egorova, a ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet. She breaks her leg in an accident on stage. She can soon walk again, but her career as a dancer is over. Her uncle, the deputy director of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, hires her to join the Sparrows, an elite group of agents who are trained to sexually seduce foreigners. Despite her initial reluctance to use her body as a weapon, she excels in her training. After a few months she's sent to Budapest to seduce Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a CIA agent who's receiving information from a high-ranking Russian informer. Her mission is to find out the name of the informer.

She underestimates Nate. Soon after meeting her he recognises that she's a Sparrow acting undercover in Budapest, but she continues with her game. When he challenges her, she claims that she wants to defect to the West. Is that true, or just a ploy to get him to trust her? The cat and mouse game continues for the rest of the film, and the viewer is left unsure of what she really wants. The film is probably the most effective the first time you watch it, when you don't know the answer, but it's still good enough for repeated watching.

The film has gained notoriety for its sexual training scenes. The Sparrows are expected to strip naked in front of the class to demonstrate their seduction skills. The ice cold Matron, played to perfection by Charlotte Rampling, drills this lesson into the trainees:

"Every human being is a puzzle of need. Learn how to be the missing piece, and they will give you everything".

Wise words. Find out what a man wants and give it to him. Dominika is told what sort of pornography Nate watches on the Internet before she starts her assignment. This, combined with her personal assessment of him, tells her what strategy to use.

It's all for Mother Russia. Vladimir Putin would be proud.

Success Rate:  + 0.2

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It comes at night (2 Stars)

The film's title suggests a terrifying horror film. In the opening scenes we see a three-person family living in fear in the woods, so the viewer is on the edge of his seat waiting to see what it is that comes at night.

I'll tell you what it is. Nothing. There are no monsters in the woods. That's not a spoiler. The family doesn't even expect a monster to come lumbering out of the woods. That's not what the film is about. Whoever picked the irrelevant film title couldn't have watched the film before he scribbled it on a napkin and gave it to his boss. I've even seen stupid film posters with the text, "It comes at night, and it doesn't leave alone". Didn't anyone notice that they'd given the film the wrong name before they released it? Go to the bottom of the class.

So what's the film about? It takes place in the near future, when a highly contagious disease has wiped out most of mankind. The disease is passed by touch, but since the family sometimes wear gas masks it's probably also by close contact when someone breathes on you.The family is living in the woods in order to survive.

They make contact with another three-person family that's looking for water. They invite them into their home, so we have six people living under one roof.

The film starts off badly. In the opening scene the family are wearing gas masks, and their voices are so muffled that it's impossible to understand them. I needed the subtitles to know what they were saying. Without the masks I could understand them, but the masks are donned again later in the film.

There are repeated night scenes which have been filmed too dark. The same blunder is repeated that I pointed out in my review of "Friday the 13th". In night scenes the picture should be bright enough for the viewer to see what's happening. That's in the ABC of cinematography, I can't believe that so many films get it wrong.

The film is spoilt by dream sequences in which we see things that don't really happen. The viewer is teased into believing that they're real events, but they aren't. None of them.

Overall, this is a poorly made film. I've given it two stars because the suspense is good. Everything else about the film is awful.

Success Rate:  + 6.2

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Gringo (3 Stars)

Families are overrated. I started writing this review two hours ago, as I can see by the time stamp, but apart from inserting the photo I've done nothing. For the last two hours family members have been walking in and out of my room, talking and squawking, not letting me get on with it. Sure, I love my family, but at this time of night I deserve a little peace.

End of rant. Now let's get on with my review.

"Gringo" is a film I wanted to see when it was in German cinemas last year. It features Charlize Theron and Amanda Seyfried, two of my favourite actresses. Add Joel Edgerton and Sharlto Copley, and you can expect a brilliant film.

Unfortunately, a film's quality isn't the sum of its actors. "Gringo" skids out of control with too many subplots weighing down the film. Oops, I'm mixing my metaphors, but I think you know what I mean. I'm sorry to say that Amanda Seyfried is completely superfluous. The film would have been tighter and more enjoyable if she'd been written out.

Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo) is an employee in an American pharmaceutical company that's about to begin to sell medical marijuana. It's not clear what he actually does in the company, but his boss refers to him as middle management. The vagueness is deliberate. His boss, Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton), is a personal acquaintance who obviously just wants someone to blame when things go wrong. Harold probably just writes reports that nobody will ever read.

The company is in Chicago, but the production is in Mexico. While waiting for approval for the sale of marijuana pills in America, the company has been selling them to a drug lord in Mexico. Off the books, of course. Now that the official sales have begun, Richard wants to break his connection with the drug lord. That's not as easy as he thinks. The head of the Mexican factory is tortured. During a business trip Harold is mistakenly thought to be the company boss, so the drug lord wants to kidnap him. Richard sends his brother Mitch (Sharlto Copley), an ex-mercenary, to retrieve him. Or kill him. If he dies while on a business trip the insurance will pay the company five million dollars.

If that plot summary were everything, the film would have been much better. Now come all the subplots. Harold's wife is having an affair with Richard. But Richard is also having an affair with his business partner, Elaine Markinson (Charlize Theron). Charlize could also have been written out of the story. Harold isn't just kidnapped in Mexico, he also tries to stage a fake kidnapping to get ransom money from his boss. And then there's Amanda Seyfried as Sunny, an innocent young woman who's talked into going to Mexico to pick up drugs with her boyfriend. There's also an undercover DEA agent. I'm sure I've forgotten other things. Honestly, too much is going on.

Harold is a tragically comic character. He believes the best of everyone. He considers his boss to be his friend, not realising that he would rather kill him than pay ransom money. He doesn't suspect for a moment that his loving wife is having an affair. Harold is naive to the point of stupidity, stumbling from one crisis into another. I didn't know whether to pity him or laugh at him.

It was difficult for me to take the characters played by Joel Edgerton and Charlize Theron at face value. They're both so downright evil that they're like caricatures. Joel plays basketball with his employees after work and ridicules the other team when he wins; he always wins, because they're afraid they'll be fired if they beat him. Charlize is a sexual predator; while sitting in a bar with a potential buyer for the company's pills, she tells him to take his penis out. "If I like the look of it we can go back to my place and have sex. If not, we'll just do business". Do women like that exist in the business world? I've never met anyone who even comes close.

The film's talent is wasted. More effort should have been invested in the screenplay.

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Boy Erased (4 Stars)

Most times when I walk out of the cinema I already know how I'm going to rate a film. I already know if I love it, hate it or it's somewhere in the middle. I've given "Boy Erased" a preliminary four star rating, but it's possible that I'll increase its rating next time I watch it. It's definitely a film that I need to watch again.

The film is the true story of an 18-year-old boy who was sent to Gay Conversion Therapy by his parents. This is a programme that is carried out by Christians in the USA on the assumption that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured. I'd heard about it in the past and considered it to be harmless nonsense. The first ten minutes put me right. I couldn't believe that the Gay Conversion centre, Love In Action, could really be so bad. If it hadn't been a true story I would have accused the film of exaggerating.

When Jared Eamons checked into the centre all his personal possessions had to be handed over. He was told that each day someone from the contacts list on his mobile phone would be rung at random to check who he was talking to. That alone would have made me turn round and walk out. But it got worse as the film progressed. In one scene a boy who is considered unrepentant has to kneel while the centre's staff and his family members, including his young sister, hit him over the head with their Bibles. All I can say is that anyone who uses a Bible as a weapon has never read what's written between the pages.

Although homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of the Christian church that Jared belongs to – Baptists? – the emphasis is on its status as an illness which can be cured by a mixture of psychotherapy and Christian preaching. The centre's leader is convinced that homosexuality is the result of sins in the immediate family, such as drugs, alcohol, pornography and similar matters. He also insists that homosexuality is caused by hatred towards your father. As part of the therapy the young men have to sit and yell at their father (represented by an empty chair) to let their anger out. When Jared says he can't do this because he's never hated his father he's accused of lying.

Jared's father is the pastor in the church he goes to. He's not a bad man. In fact he's a very good man, not at all hypocritical, and he loves his son. He's just somewhat confused. When he finds out his son is gay he wants to help him overcome his illness. He means well. He wouldn't have hit his son with a Bible. He's not that bad.

When Jared enters the centre, one of the first things he hears is the leader saying, "You weren't born gay, that's a lie. It's a choice". I disagree with both of these statements.

In recent years it's become common to say that people are born gay because they have a homosexual gene. That's nonsense, from a purely evolutionary standpoint. Evolution is all about the survival of the fittest. The strong survive, the weak die. This happens through procreation. A homosexual gene, if it existed, would hinder procreation and only be passed on by a person acting against his genetic makeup or as a recessive gene. Any gene which makes procreation less likely is a weak gene, which might survive a few generations, but over the course of a thousand years it would die out.

The concept of a homosexual gene isn't the result of scientific studies. It was invented to make people accept homosexuality by saying, "Everyone has to accept homosexuals because they were born that way". I don't think the tolerance of one's fellow man needs such artificial props. The people who say that there's a homosexual gene don't realise that the existence of a weak gene would mean that homosexuals are inferior. I refuse to believe that homosexuals are in the least inferior to heterosexuals. They're in every way as valuable as everyone else.

It's also foolish to call homosexuality a choice. Nobody chooses what he likes and doesn't like, whether it's music or food or sexual partners. Instead of choice I would use the word preference. Choice implies a positive action, whereas preference is something passive. Where does a preference come from? It can come from anywhere, except I would say it's post-existence. It might come from childhood experiences, it might come from pre-natal experiences, or it might come purely at random. These preferences only become apparent to others when they're strong enough to be expressed, so by then it's too late to change them. Brainwashing a person with Gay Conversion Therapy might work, but even if it does force a person to think differently it will do a person more harm than good.

Preferring sex with people of one's own gender is a sexual preference like any other. For instance, I have a sexual preference that leans towards masochism. I don't know where this came from. It's not a choice. The earliest I can remember is when I was eleven years old, and I found myself sexually aroused by comics in which Supergirl was hitting men. This feeling has remained with me all my life. When I was in my late teens I thought something was wrong with me and made a conscious effort to suppress these feelings, but I couldn't. It wasn't until I finally spoke to someone about it when I was 21 that I realised my masochism was normal. I learnt to accept myself.

Homosexuality is normal. Suppressing homosexuality is wrong. Suppressing homosexuality will make you ill. If you choose to be heterosexual when your natural preference is to be homosexual you will never be happy.

The Thing [2011] (3 Stars)

Today is the first time I've watched this film. I thought it was a remake of the 1982 film with the same name directed by John Carpenter, but I was wrong. It's a prequel, although I didn't realise it until the final scenes.

A Norwegian scientific team discovers an alien spacecraft buried beneath the ice of the Antarctic. Nearby they find a creature frozen in the ice, presumably trapped when it was attempting to reach the surface. The ice is melted to examine the creature's body, but it isn't dead. It attacks and kills several of the scientists. Worse than that, it's able to create identical copies of anybody it kills, so it can pretend to be one of the scientists. And not just one. It rapidly multiplies, seemingly by dividing itself, so there are several creatures running around the base.

I enjoyed the original film. It has the same excitement and suspense as all of John Carpenter's films. This prequel doesn't live up to it. It relies on gore rather than suspense. The film failed at the box office, it failed with the critics and it's failed with me.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Red Sparrow (4 Stars)

This is another example of a film that I saw in the cinema that wasn't what I expected. Maybe it was the trailer that led me astray, maybe it was the lead actress's background. I expected "Red Sparrow" to be an action thriller like "Atomic Blonde", but it was closer to "A Most Wanted Man".

Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a successful Russian ballerina. After an accident on stage she's unable to continue with her career, and she's worried that she will no longer be able to support her sick mother. Her uncle Ivan  Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts) suggests that she join the Russian secret service. She is trained as a "Sparrow", an organisation of young, sexy agents who are trained to seduce enemy agents. Despite being rebellious during her training, she's sent on a mission to seduce an American CIA agent, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), in Budapest. Russia knows that Nash is receiving information from a mole in the Russian government, and they want her to find out the name of the mole.

The mission doesn't run as smoothly as planned. The CIA knows that Dominika is a Russian agent and attempts to recruit her. She's torn between the two sides, since she doesn't fully trust either spy agency. All she's interested in is looking after herself and her mother.

There are only a few action sequences in the film. It's fascinating to see the way spy business is carried out as a matter of routine.

It comes at night (2 Stars)

This is the 40th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

At a time in the near future the human race has been decimated by a deadly virus. There's no cure. Anyone who is infected dies. People with the virus are contagious for a few days before the symptoms become visible, symptoms such as bleeding from the mouth. Families live in isolation to prevent infection, but drinking water is in short supply, suggesting that polluted water was the way the infection was first spread.

A married couple live with their teenage son. They keep to themselves, like everyone else. They decide to be compassionate and take in a couple with a young child who have no home. They don't seem to be infected, but how can they be sure?

The film is already a box office success, but I don't understand why. The action is painfully slow, and there's very little suspense. Apart from this, the picture is too dark for most of the film. This is something the film industry has forgotten. In films made up to the 1960's night scenes were always artificially lit, so it was clear what was happening. Just because you and I see unclearly when we walk in a moonless night, it doesn't mean that night scenes in films have to be just as dark. Artistic license should take priority over clinical accuracy.

Loving (4½ Stars)

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix. (Judge Leon Bazile, January 22nd, 1965).

I've been waiting to see this film for months. The story fascinated me. It's a true story, supposedly well known in America, but I had never heard about it until a few months ago.

In 1958 Richard Loving -- a very appropriate name -- was a 25 year old construction worker in Caroline County, Virginia. When his 18-year-old girlfriend Mildred Jeter became pregnant he asked her to marry him. The problem is that they weren't allowed to marry, because he was white and she was black. Issues like that were governed by state laws, not by federal laws, so they travelled to Washington D.C. to get married. On returning home their house was raided by the police and they were arrested. As the sheriff pointed out, it wasn't a problem that they lived together or even that Mildred was pregnant, because white men were allowed to have black whores. The crime was that they were married, because they were expressing that marriage between different races was something normal.

In court they were sentenced to one year in prison, but the sentence was suspended on condition that they left Virginia immediately and didn't return together for 25 years. They went to live with Mildred's relatives in Washington. Richard kept his job in Caroline County, even though he had to drive 85 miles to work every day. At first they were happy together, but slowly it became a burden for Mildred as she had first one, then two, then three children. She had lived all her life in the countryside, and life in a city was unbearable for her. In 1963 she wrote to the American attorney general, Robert Kennedy, and asked for help overturning the ruling. Two young inexperienced lawyers were appointed to represent them by the American Civil Liberties Union. That was the beginning of a long, hard court battle.

The two lead actors put on excellent performances. Both Richard and Mildred were uneducated, although Mildred had more natural intelligence. Richard didn't understand much of what was happening, so he kept his head down and did what he was told. Mildred was more astute and willing to fight for justice. Actors are highly educated people, it's in the nature of their work, so Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga do an excellent job in dumbing themselves down, if you understand what I mean. Richard loved his wife, but he was a man of few words and didn't know how to express it. Mildred was an outwardly emotional woman, which we see in Ruth Negga's facial expressions every time the camera lingers on her. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress, but she lost to Emma Stone in "La La Land". That's totally ridiculous! Sometimes I wonder if the Academy Award judges ever take time to watch the films they vote for.

The couple are now remembered on June 12th every year, celebrated as Loving Day. I've only found out about it now. Please remind me to celebrate it next year.

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The Gift (2015) (4 Stars)

This is an original film, nothing to do with the 2000 Sam Raimi film with the same name. It's an Australian film, the first film directed by Joel Edgerton, who also plays Gordo, the man bearing a gift in the poster shown above.

A young childless couple, Simon and Robyn, buy a new house in the area where Simon grew up. While shopping at a hardware store Simon is approached by Gordon Mosely, an old classmate that he hasn't seen at school. Simon doesn't remember him until he says his old nickname, Gordo. Over the next few days Gordo repeatedly brings gifts to the house, as if he were their best friend. Simon and Robyn find this unnerving, considering it a one-sided friendship.

This is an excellent psychological thriller. It's full of twists and turns from the beginning to the end, some of which are given away by the film trailer. Don't watch it! The film's slow development emphasises the grim atmosphere. It's not a horror film, but it does contain a few scary moments.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (4 Stars)

2014 has marked the return of the Biblical epics to Hollywood. First "Noah", now "Exodus". The screenwriters had the opposite problem in the new film. The problem with the story of Noah is that very little is said about it in the Bible, only four chapters of Genesis for a momentous occurrence that destroyed the world. The problem with the story of Moses is that a lot is written about him, four whole books of the Bible. This meant that the film about Noah was puffed out by adding new elements, which (in my opinion) totally destroyed the story. The film about Moses has to rush through the events, shortening some and omitting others, even though it concentrates on the first half of the Biblical book of Exodus. 150 minutes is too short to tell the full story.

Let me point out a few of the major changes in the story and give my opinion on whether they are justified.

1. God is portrayed as a young boy who only Moses can see.

While it's not what we read in the Bible, it's an interesting way to portray the unportrayable. In the book of Exodus God is described as being so terrible in appearance that anyone who sees his face will die. As God speaks to Moses on the mountain when Moses asks to see God, "You cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live. There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back, but my face must not be seen". (Exodus 33:20-23).

Showing God as a child is, in my opinion, an acceptable compromise. The alternative would have been a dazzling white light and a booming voice, which would have looked comical rather than awe-inspiring.

2. Aaron plays an insignificant role in the film.

In the Bible God speaks to Moses, but Aaron speaks to the Pharaoh on Moses' behalf. The two brothers go to Pharaoh together to plead for the Israelites to be freed. This is because Moses claims to stutter. Moses said to God, "Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?" To this God replies, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country". (Exodus 6:30-7:2).

This is a deliberate simplification of the story, a conscious decision made in order to let the film be about the man Moses. Giving his brother a bigger role would have detracted from the character development.

3. Moses leaves his family behind in the film.

The Bible is very clear that Moses returned to Egypt with his family. "Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt". (Exodus 4:20). Yes, there were two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, not one as in the film.

I'm not sure why this was changed. Maybe it is because very little is written about Moses' wife Zipporah in the Bible, and having her shown at Moses' side would have made it necessary to develop her character.

4. Only 400,000 Israelites left Egypt in the film.

The actual number, though not explicitly stated, was much higher. The people were counted in the desert, and according to Numbers 1:46, there were 603,500 men over the age of 20 who were able to serve in the army. This number does not include the women, children or old men. Based on this we can estimate that the full population was at least two million, maybe as many as four million.

There was no need for the film to minimise the population in this way. Telling us the full numbers, even if it had been as vague as to say "millions", would have made the exodus all the more overwhelming. This would have made the crossing of the Red Sea all the more impressive. How much time would it take for two million people to cross the sea?

5. The miracle of the parting of the Red Sea is minimised.

In the film the water level goes down overnight, so that the Israelites can wade through the low water on the next day. The Bible describes this much more spectacularly. "Moses stretched his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left". (Exodus 14:21).

The film has the strange episode of Moses running back into the sea to save Pharaoh when the water comes back. The waves wash Moses back onto the shore, while Pharaoh gets back to safety on the opposite shore. This scene is intended to show the poignancy of the relationship between Moses and Ramses, two men who had grown up as brothers. It's a cute story, but inaccurate. The Pharaoh died along with all his army, and Moses would never have risked his life to save him.

Apart from these major changes, there are other subtle changes that are suggested without being explicitly stated. Moses seems relatively young at the time of the exodus, but he was actually much older. "Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 when they spoke to Pharaoh". (Exodus 7:7).

There is also the aspect in the Bible that God was influencing the Pharaoh to make him Moses' enemy. We read several times that God himself hardened Pharaoh's heart to make him oppose Moses, for instance, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will not listen to you". (Exodus 7:3-4). These verses cause problems for Biblical scholars, but the best explanation I can offer is that Pharaoh had already been an evil man all his life -- he was probably in his 70's at this time -- and God's patience with him had run out. It's common for Christians to say that it's never too late to turn from evil, but these chapters of the Bible say the opposite. Pharaoh had probably had repeated chances to act well towards the Israelites all his life, but at this time God said "No more", and brought the ten plagues as a judgement over Pharaoh and all of Egypt. I think all ten plagues were shown, although they happened very quickly in the film, running swiftly into one another.

Moses frequently pleads with God during the film, asking him to show mercy. This is an accurate portrayal of Moses' personality. During the time in the desert God repeatedly said he would destroy the Israelites because of their unbelief, but Moses pleaded with God to change his mind. Moses was a man who stood up to God, not just accepting everything he was told.

The Passover feast is totally ignored in the film. That's a shame. This is the thing that I most missed. Maybe it was a matter of pacing. It might have been difficult to make a pause between the first nine plagues and the tenth plague for Moses to make long explanations to the Israelites how they should spend the night when their houses would be passed over. Maybe Ridley Scott, as the film's director, was afraid that any discrepancies would have been savagely attacked by Jewish reviewers, because the Passover Feast is the most important celebration of the Jewish year.

The presentation of the so-called "Ten Commandments" is rushed in the film. This could have been left out completely. The tablets were actually written twice. The first tablets were created by God, (Exodus 31:18), but after Moses destroyed them in a rage he had to make the replacement tablets himself. (Exodus 34:1). The film shows Moses writing the words, but this is wrong, because God wrote the words on both sets of tablets. It would have been better to omit this altogether. The final scene shows Moses being carried in a cart (the ark of the covenant) with the stone tablets. This is also wrong. It was God himself who was carried in the cart. But that's going too deep into Biblical exposition.

At least the film didn't show Moses arriving in Israel. That was the one thing I feared would be shown wrong, but the film ends on the journey. Moses was punished for his anger in the desert. "Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them". (Numbers 3:12). In fact, of all the men who left Egypt, only two entered Israel, Joshua and Caleb. All the rest died during the 40-year journey through the desert. Only their children, the ones born on the journey, and the ones who had been under 20 arrived at their destination. (Joshua 5:4).

Overall, the film makes a good impression. The inaccuracies can be overlooked. I can recommend it to my readers, whatever they think of the Bible.