Gods of Egypt [Movie Review]

I had to see this movie. It was panned so badly, and it looked so flashy, that there was choice - I had to see it. And you know what... it was not actually as terrible as the critics claimed.

It's a very pretty city. Way too clean, and way too nice.
In fact it is nicer than most modern cities.

Do not mistake me.
This was no great movie, no great spectacle, no amazing cinematic tour de force. But it was at least a watchable film (I've seen far far worse), and it had a story - even if that story was badly paced and sometime very sloppily executed.

3 out of 5 stars

This movie may best be described as a bad super-hero movie wrapped in the guise of Egyptian mythology. That's both its failing and the reason why it still succeeds - in a limited fashion. Heck it has almost broken even at the box office - something of a feat for a movie that was nearly yanked out of the theaters after a week. My local massive theater with 24 screens only had it showing 4x daily after the first week (3D and normal projection combined). When it finally moved to the discount theaters it got just as many show slots.

The contrast of the size of the gods to the humans
was a nice touch. The movie was trying.

Considering I also spent exactly $1.00 USD to see the film (excluding drink cost), it was a bargain. I probably would not have felt bad about seeing it on discount Tuesdays for $5.00.

My least favorite casting in the entire movie.

Wait I know what you are going to say. Isn't this movie 'White Washed?" I wanna say yes and no. Historically speaking we have no absolute idea of what the ancient Egyptian race(s) was / were. There is a very good chance that ancient Egyptians were quite varied. There are theories that Egyptians were black skinned, Asiatic, Caucasian, or even Taranid - a term I had to look up meaning a race resembling the Mongolian Tatars, with yellowish skin. Seriously. Never heard the term before. Now that being said, casting Gerard Butler as Set was just... not the best choice. It is more his accent, one he cannot seem to escape from, that hurts more than his skin tone. The two main female leads (Élodie Yung and Courtney Eaton) look like they would fit perfectly in ancient Egypt. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is cast just fine as Horus, because the gods are all shiny and golden - just like Jamie Lanister. Thoth played by Chadwick Boseman is one of my favorite characters, I always love the nerdy characters, and the dude is going to play Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War. And of course, Rufus Sewell, who actually looks perfect in the part. So the casting is not too terrible. It could have been a bit better... but I've seen worse. John Wayne as Genghis Khan is worse...

The questionable race thing is bothersome - because honestly movies should not be white-washed. I do not want to see repeats of things like John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror ever again. There are awesome actors and actress of every race out there and we should be bolstering their box-office power so that movies are more and more believable. (I'm not going into a rant about the upcoming GiTS movie here, or that Scarlett Johansson is a perfectly fine Major Kusanagi - she is, it works, we're all fine here).

So this is the guy who is going to be Black Panther?
Interesting.

No what hurt this movie is costume design. They mix ancient Egyptian styles with Arabian nights styles with Fezzes and with Power Armor. The power armor is fine - gods are allowed power armor. The other mixture is just insane. It really separates you from the mediocre plot. A mediocre plot does not need me going - "Hey, why was that guy in a fez?"

The plot is also in need of tightening up. The pacing was off; some things sped by too fast, some too slow. Some parts seem to thrown in just to reference past movies that involves traps in pyramids. Some plot points make little to no sense (there is a scene in an wooden elevator that literally made no sense). Still there are some good lines, an actual attempt at a story, the gods bleed gold (which is just cool looking actually), and some really flashy power-armored fights. Even if too many of those fights involved stupid 3D moments - you know, movements and angles that would never have been used if 3D was not a thing... again.

I had more than enough fun on $1.00 USD. How often can one say that in the modern world? Almost never.

Man I'm going to the discount theater more often. If only their chairs did not suck compared to the big cineplex.