Christian Bale was Batman. Even though Batman is a hero, everyone knows he has some serious issues. The Dark Knight series did not dodge those, but played them for all they were worth.

Now Christian Bale is Moses in the Ridley Scott-produced film Exodus: Gods and Kings. And according to Christianity Today, Bale sees some really troubling stuff in that “character” as well.

“I think the man was likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life,” Bale said about Moses.

That’s some serious analysis from a man who famously played a psychopathic killer. But maybe he was just talking about non-fiction characters.

Bale said that he did some serious research on Moses before doing Exodus. He called his religious background and knowledge prior to landing the part “below Sunday school.” He read biographical books, but also the Torah and the Koran.

Another word Bale uses to describe Moses is “mercurial.”

“He was a very troubled, tumultuous man and mercurial,” Bale said after a trailer screening for Exodus. “But the biggest surprise was the nature of God. He was equally very mercurial”

“Mercurial” can be defined as: subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind.

Some Christians have been excited at the crop of films from big studios, with big celebrity names attached, that are Bible-based or at least have their stories rooted in Bible characters. The recent Russell Crowe film Noah disappointed some, who felt that it did not treat the Biblical topic with enough reverence.

The Nicolas Cage-led Left Behind film has one character exclaiming, “The God my mother talked about would never do something like this!”

But the big moviemakers aren’t taking all this that seriously. When Ridley Scott was asked about how his new Exodus might parallel recent Middle East tensions he said, “People can do that if they want to be really negative or just sit down and enjoy the f***ing movie. It’s a movie!”