Ridley Scott made this Biblical epic the old-fashioned way, casting thousands of extras instead of conjuring them up digitally, and the movie works well as big-budget spectacle despite a ho-hum script. Christian Bale stars as Moses, politically awakened to lead his people out of captivity, and a bald-headed Joel Edgerton plays the Pharaoh, first Moses's buddy but then his deadly antagonist. The movie's best gimmick is presenting God, in his mountainside colloquies with Moses, as a sadistic little boy, the kind who likes to fry ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass. This was shot in 3-D, which comes in especially handy when Scott arrives at the plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red (and also blue, I guess) Sea. With Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and John Turturro. By J.R. Jones