Gods of Egypt - Movie Review - Gods of Egypt Review

Gerard Butler’s going to make you an atheist

Gods of Egypt is a bad movie. There's no getting around that. The acting is bad, the execution is bad, the effects are bad, and that's just scratching the surface.

But there are some bad movies that are at least enjoyably so; we can derive pleasure from them even as we understand they're not the craft at its finest, and in some ways Gods of Egypt can at least fall into that category.

Perhaps the best thing going for the movie is that all the outrage at its premise came out with the trailer. Going in, you're aware that you're in for a white-washed reappropriation of Egyptian culture.
Looking beyond that, it's clear to see Gods of Egypt for what it really is: a classic high fantasy story that lacks the imagination to come up with a setting and mythology that is in any way original.
Gods of Egypt centers around god of light Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and the mortal Bek (Brenton Thwaites). On the day of Horus's coronation by his father, god of light Osiris (Bryan Brown), the king's envious brother Set (Gerard Butler), god of the desert, shows up and takes control of Egypt. Bek teams with a defeated Horus on a quest through larger-than-life landscapes to find a way to beat Set and also save the woman he loves from death.

If Gods of Egypt had been set against a mystical backdrop not based in reality, it might have been easier to forgive the fact that its gods are essentially Iron Man mixed with Power Rangers. Or that it never works exceptionally well for these gods to just be enlarged versions of humans. Or that the Ra (Geoffrey Rush) -- Set and Osiris's father -- lives on what is essentially a spaceship. Or that Set inexplicably (and often) slips a Scottish accent. Or that the beings in power bleed gold, literally. But because the movie is based in a real mythology of a real, living group of people, it's hard not to get frustrated with these characterizations that constantly beg for comparisons with the real thing.
Director Alex Proyas, best known for helming The Crow and I, Robot, created a film that probably would have been better-received during the eras those two better-received movies debuted in. Gods of Egypt has traces of The Mummy in it, but the way it bends its inspiration doesn't feel fresh in today's movie landscape.

The fact that video game CGI looks better than the shoddy green screen work here does Gods of Egypt no favors. The fight scenes are consistently underwhelming and silly, the actors often aren't integrated well into the backdrop and the slow-mo, 300-style action sequences think they're much cooler than they actually are.

The leads of the movie are all trying their best, even if some of them are glaringly out of place. Thwaites is charming and energetic as lead character Bek, and plays well opposite Coster-Waldau's Horus as he tries to rescue his love (Courtney Eaton's Zaya).

Coster-Waldau has much better offerings as Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones, but he's never outright bad here, and that's better than some (looking at you, Chadwick Boseman).

Butler is a strong performer in his comfort zone as a king or a warrior, but his portrayal of the villainous Set never has him convincing as an Egyptian god, Scottish accent popping through or not.
Of all of them, Elodie Yung offers the best performance as Hathor, the goddess of love. The actress, who will debut as Elektra on Daredevil: Season 2, is the rare empathetic character in this movie whose emotional moments actually land. She also takes ownership of the character; Hathor never apologizes for her sexuality -- she's the goddess of love, after all -- and one key scene makes up for lot of what would have otherwise been questionable characterization.

The Verdict

Because the actors and Proyas do fully commit to the fantastical world they're building, Gods of Egypt isn't a movie so terrible as not to be enjoyable. But its weaknesses far outweigh its strengths, and the film never grounds itself in any real stakes. At best Gods of Egypt is forgettable and at worst it's truly awful, and determining where it lands on that spectrum will be dependent on the viewer. Just don't get your hopes up for anything quality going in.

                                                                                                                                                 

Do Gods bleed? This movie certainly does. (Lionsgate)

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Gods of Egypt
Director - Alex Proyas
Cast - Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Jung, Geoffrey Rush
Rating - 1/5

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor
- Regina Spektor

But what if the Gods in question are the glittery ones from Gods of Egypt? What if they ride on flying chariots kept aloft by bugs and trees and birds? What if they had the power to transform into metallic statues and fiery bulls? What if they bled gold and fought snake monsters by hissing at them?

There’s a scene in Gods of Egypt where Gerard Butler, still hungover from 300, bellows at the camera, “You think I’d put any effort into trying to amuse you?” And it makes you wonder, considering the levels of insanity that this movie has been assaulting you with (for 2 hours!), if Gerard Butler was in on the joke the whole time. Because not only is Alex Proyas’ new film borderline unwatchable, it’s irredeemably so.

After floating across an atrociously rendered CG Egypt for a solid minute we are introduced to Bek, an Aladdin-type mortal who spends his days knicking valuables for himself and his beloved Zaya. And that is the absolute extent to which his character is defined, which is not ideal, because bear in mind, he’s the protagonist. Meanwhile, the God of Disorder (and Desert Storms), Set kicks into motion his nefarious scheme of world domination by killing his brother Osiris in the most inconvenient and inconspicuous way possible. Set blinds Osiris’ son Horus, our second protagonist, and sends him to a cellar to spend the rest of his blind days. When something really bad (death) happens to Zaya, Bek is sent on a quest that will force him to team up with the curmudgeonly Horus as they seek vengeance on the evil Set and attempt to bring Zaya back to life. Hilarity does not ensue.

The lovable odd couple. (Lionsgate)

Honestly, the film grows stupider by the scene. Gods of Egypt plays out much like a video game: One that feels like watching a particularly ill-mannered teen play. Badly, I might add. On a whim, they decide to consult Ra (the Zeus of Egyptian Gods), who happens to be living a zen life on a spaceship (a spaceship! In ancient Egypt!), not unlike Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy. For those of you keeping score at home, this movie has flying chariots kept aloft by butterflies, really angry metallic statues, plans that involve “killing the desert,” giant serpents and now, Ra on a spaceship. Oh, and I forgot to mention: Ra has a tendency to spontaneously combust and is played by screen legend Geoffrey Rush.
As some of you may have already guessed, the central relationship between the Gods sounds a lot like the Odin-Thor-Loki dynamic. And speaking of Norse Gods, let’s talk a little bit about that great, big alabaster elephant in the room: Racial whitewashing. Horus, noted Egyptian God, is played with striking emotional blankness by the whitest, most Scandinavian man imaginable, the Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. You know him as Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones. Who you probably don’t know is the Australian Brenton Thwaites, who delivers a performance so mind-numbingly dull that it can put sleeping pills to sleep, which is unfortunate because he was quite good in Oculus. And then there’s Gerard Butler as Set, not even pretending to give a fart, with his almost comically exaggerated Scottish accent. This movie is the worst example of a very important problem and there is no defending it. The sooner they accept they goofed up the better. And in all its narrow-minded negativity, the dialogue it has incited on this issue is perhaps the only good this movie will ever end up doing.

This. Is. Egypt! (Lionsgate)

What’s most disappointing is the fact that this film is directed by the truly talented Alex Proyas, the man behind Dark City, I Robot and Knowing (a film most people detest, but not me). And it’s clear he came armed with a vision, but when that vision resembles the inside of a blingy Dubai nightclub, we’re all in trouble. Once again, we have a respected sci-fi filmmaker falling into an ugly CG pit of his own making, because what we have here is this year’s Jupiter Ascending.

Gods of Egypt makes that Wachowski atrocity look like a masterpiece. Hell, it makes Clash of the Titans look like a masterpiece. In fact, it resembles Clash so closely that you almost start looking around for a confused Sam Worthington to show up. And guess what, they’ve even shoehorned their own ‘Release the Kraken!’ moment here.

Release the Sphinx! (Lionsgate)

Look, at least Tarsem Singh’s Immortals, The Rock’s Hercules, and yes, Clash of the Titans and Jupiter Ascending had the decency to be a hoot. They fully embraced their silliness. Gods of Egypt on the other hand, is horrible at even the one thing it should have made sure it did well: The CGI. It’s extremely ugly, it looks plastic and noticeably fake. In an age where we have small-budget films like Anonymous and Chronicle redefining CGI, here’s a $150 million eyesore. And there’s no scenery-chewing Eddie Redmayne to save them this time.

The film, pun fully intended, is an ungodly mess. What could have been an adventurous buddy comedy, an old-fashioned, Ben-Hur style epic, or a knowingly deranged B-movie ends up being an early contender for the worst film of the year. Too bad. Those trailers looked good.