Sweet fancy Moses, it appears Hollywood is once again embracing the Holy Book.  On the heels of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah earlier this year, we now get our first real look at Ridley Scott’s crack at the Bible in the form of the trailer for Exodus: Gods and Kings.  Christian Bale stars as Moses as he leads half a million slaves out of Egypt against the wishes of Pharaoh Ramses, played by Joel Edgerton.

Check out the trailer here.

Pretty much from the first frame of the trailer there’s no doubt that this is an epic Ridley Scott production.  Shades of Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, and Robin Hood abound.  Visually the trailer looks stunning, but what remains to be seen is whether Scott and his team have found a way to make it more than just a string of visual set-pieces, and hook the audience into the plight of these larger-than-life characters.  The good news on that front is that the script was written by Steve Zaillian (Moneyball, American Gangster, Schindler’s List), who has proven time and again that he can tackle difficult and weighty material as well as anyone.

Though Bale (The Dark Knight series, Terminator: Salvation) is certainly no stranger to big movies, this is a huge opportunity for Australian actor Joel Edgerton, who was last seen playing the villain in Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby, and previously had a string of very minor roles in larger films (Zero Dark Thirty, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), and large roles in small films (Wish You Were Here, Warrior).  The images of Edgerton here as Ramses are striking (read: borderline comical) and sure to stir controversy from now until the release.  Though the supporting turns from Ben Kingsley (Ender’s Game) and John Turturro (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) make sense from a purely aesthetic sense in terms of ethnicity, the casting of Sigourney Weaver (re-teaming with her Alien director) and Aaron Paul (Need for Speed) are a little more puzzling, and should also provide a fair amount of online chatter.

We’ve been covering this highly anticipated movie from the start and will continue bring you news and updates as they come.  Fox will release this epic late in the year just in time for the holidays, on December 12th.