Chris Takis Papaleonardos

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I am judging this as a film, not as a history or piece of religious iconography or theological document. Whatever one's religious views (or absence thereof) the story of Moses and the Exodus is one of the great stories of the world. Is Testament: The Story of Moses a great movie, though? I wouldn't say it was great, but I thought it was generally well-done. The casting was superb -- finally a movie set in the Middle East where the peoples look like they live in the Middle East. At times the scenario seemed to move very quickly over events. And yet, it seems as if the classic DeMille version of the Ten Commandments covers more ground. I thought the actors were all believable and the characters portrayed more realistically than we've seen before. I liked hearing the different perspectives of the various theologians, but I thought it detracted from the film experience. Better to have put all that stuff in a 30-minute companion special. The mini-series would've been improved. I was impressed that they went "local" (Morocco I think it was) for filming, but too much of the scenery seems rocky rather than sandy, didn't seem to evoke Egypt (the Nile) or Sinai. Let's face it, in terms of scenery, Cecil B DeMille's classic can't be beat, with lots of on location filming in Egypt, including archaeological sites. Where this production really let me down in terms of believability is in the very small numbers of Israelites depicted; the film mentions how the Hebrews accounted for 40% of the Egyptian workforce. Yet at no time, as they are escaping Egypt, crossing the parted sea, wandering in the desert, etc do we ever see anything that looks like more than 80-120 people at best, or encampments that could hold considerably more. Again, the classic film was able to convey the idea visually that thousands were fleeing Egypt. All in all, I'd probably give this a 3 to 3.5 stars. The casting and acting are first rate.