Gods of Egypt
Starring: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler
Directed By: Alex Proyas
Written By: Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless
Reviewed by Brendan Dousi
[rating: 1/5]
Did you see the trailer for Gods of Egypt? Well, if you did then you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in for. I did have a glimmer of hope at one point where I thought, “Hey, maybe the marketing team is just phoning it in and this film has this whole other intriguing side to it but they just don’t know how to sell it”. Yeah, well, I’m an idiot. This confounding, over-produced, homogenised piece of cinematic trash is exactly what it was promising to be. A hot mess.
The most impressive feat that Gods of Egypt has going for it is that it even got made in the first place. Did anyone, at any stage of the production of a movie like this actually say, “You know what? I think this one’s a winner.” Or perhaps it was simply the studio resigning itself to the fact that they probably should have a movie for the beginning of the year. But, instead of just making a dodgy Rom-Com or a plain as balls action film starring a next-to-b-grade wannabe action star trying to prove his mettle someone decided, “Hey, you know that awful script we have about Egyptian Gods fucking each other up that would probably cost an obscene amount of money to make? Let’s make that.” I’m just going to assume that the nerd who was really into Ancient Mythology in High School finally got into a position of power at a film studio.
Apart from having a weirdly paced script with some of the clunkiest dialogue imaginable, Gods of Egypt could have been a really cool movie. Ancient Egyptian mythology is awesome, with relationships to make Shakespeare’s best seem like your standard soap opera and some really intriguing and imaginative visuals to draw from. Naturally, it may come as a bitter disappointment when Egyptian born director Alex Proyas decided to make this film as homogenously garish as possible. Proyas can make a beautiful and stylistic film. Dark City was a love-letter to Noir. Hell, even I Robot had a nice visual sensibility to it. Gods of Egypt however just looks offensive. The bright colour palette seeks to burn your eyes out of your skull as they assault your very soul with cartoonish arrogance. I may be being a little over-dramatic here, but let’s face it. This is one absurdly ugly film with horrendous character design and questionable-at-best costuming and simply lazy production design.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be blaming Proyas for all of this, anyway, because about ten minutes into the film it’s pretty obvious he probably wasn’t even there. Absolutely no one on screen seems to be receiving any sort of direction for their performances. It’s a shame, because there are a lot of great actors in this for some reason. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus tries his best to be the strong leading man, despite how ridiculous everything he does is, Geoffrey Rush pops in to ham it up as a sunburt Ra and Gerard Butler clearly gives no shits as he spends his time yelling and stomping around as Set. These powerhouse actors have nothing to worry about; however, their careers are pretty solid for the moment. Unfortunately, it’s the younger cast that suffer the most. Poor Brenton Thwaites as Bek is clearly lost here delivering his stunted dialogue with only the minimum amount of charisma we know he can muster. He is actually a fantastic actor; it’s just a shame to see him being dragged down like this. At least he gets a little bit of character development, as opposed to Courtney Eaton as love interest Zaya who is basically resorted to playing a walking pair of tits. Let’s hope this one isn’t a complete career killer for these poor kids.
As offensive, white-washed and uneven as this film can be it still does have a certain level of entertainment value to it if you file it under the ‘so bad it’s good’ category. Almost everything here was a clear-miss and it’s actually quite wonderful to behold such a cinematic fuck-up unfolding on screen before you. So, if I had to say one good thing about Gods of Egypt, it’s that it manages to avoid committing the cardinal sin of cinema; it isn’t boring.
