Gods of Egypt (2016)
Director: Alex Proyas
Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler
Synopsis:
When Set the god of the desert usurps the throne of Egypt, it falls to a mortal thief to aid Horus in his quest for vengeance and the throne.
Impressions:
When I saw the trailers for this, I thought it might be interesting but I didn't feel overly compelled to go see it. It suffered critical savaging and miserable box office returns, which didn't make me feel like regretting my decision too much. The whining about the so-called "whitewashed" casting and the counter-sniping by director Alex Proyas was worth a chuckle, but I didn't pay the film any further thought until it crossed my path on the cable circuit. First off, I'm not going to touch the casting thing because, honestly, do we have enough bankable Coptic actors to make an Egyptian fantasy film with the closest thing that remains of the original Egyptians? We get to see Jaime Lannister duke it out with King Leonidas while Captain Barbossa does battle with a cosmic horrorterror. What more do you need? I liked the movie. There were good character dynamics and a distinctive aesthetic. I particularly liked Horus' character arc and his rocky relationship with Bek was fairly amusing. Besides Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus, I also liked Gerard Butler as Set, Chadwick Boseman as the campy Thoth, and Geoffrey Rush as Ra. The visual effects are generally quite good, but there are some points where the CG doesn't blend that well with the live action and it does have a fairly video gamey feel that may not appeal to everyone. If you take this as a simple popcorn-muncher, you should enjoy it (and maybe be pleasantly surprised with some of the meat to the character elements). I say give it a watch.
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