Gods of Egypt (2016)

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nGods of Egypt (2016)

nDirector: Alex Proyas

nCast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Courtney Eaton, BrentonnThwaites, Elodie Young, Gerard Butler, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush

nEvery once in a while a movie tanks at the box office, whennit shouldn’t have. I mean surely, most of the films that get the shaft bynaudiences usually deserve it, but in the case of Alex Proyas big budget fantasynextravaganza Gods of Egypt, it didn’t. I kick myself in the ass for listeningnto that first batch of negative reviews that accused the film among many things of “whitenwashing” the cast, which means that a group of people got angry because charactersnthat were Egyptian (and therefore should look Egyptian) where being played bynwhite actors. I don’t really care about that sort of thing; I’m just enjoying anmovie here. Weren’t we past the whole skin color thing? Guess not. Anyways, reviewersndecided to spew their hatred at this one and well, no one went to see it. Thisnis the kind of film that was badmouthed even before it was released. And so, itnonly made back 31 million dollars on a 140 million dollar budget, which meansnit was a gargantuan flop. It’s sad because a box office flop of this magnitudencold spell the end of Alex Proyas career,nwhich means no more big budget films for him. The worst part is that thisnmovie, in my opinion, is an excellent action adventure fantasy extravaganzanthat deserved to be embraced by audiences.
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nThe story is multi faceted, on the one hand it’s about Horus,nthe God of Wind, trying to recover his god hood and his kingdom. On the othernhand, it’s a story about a young man named Bek, trying to recover the love ofnhis life from the icy grips of death. You see Set, the God of Chaos has takennover the land and rules it with an iron fist. Since this is a full on fantasynfilm, Set can do things like changing the rules of what happens after you die.nWhere in the past all you had to do was be a good citizen and work to go tonheaven, now in order to earn your way into the afterlife you have to pay! Ifnyou don’t have something of value you are sent to hell, but if you got thengoods you go to heaven with the Gods. This of course spells certain doom fornpoor people who have nothing to give to the Gods. Will order be set again? CannHorus learn to fight for the rights of the people? Will the Gods learn to carenabout humans? Or will they remain self centered and egotistical?
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nThis film was awesome for many reasons, number one, it has angood story. It grabs you from the get go because it pits the despotic ruler vs.nthe unpredictable rebel trying to fight for his rightful place in the world. Unfortunately,nSet the despotic ruler cares nothing for “the little people”; he only cares aboutnpower and riches. So it’s that classic class struggle story, the powerful vs.nthe working class. They had this awesome visual idea for this movie where ‘ThenGods’ look slightly bigger than the humans, so it’s like they aren’t gigantic,nbut they are a few inches bigger than the regular humans, which made for a coolnvisual. I’m sure it must’ve been hell to film though, this visual effect makesnpractically every scene in the movie a special effect! And speaking of effects,nthey are top notch on this show! It’s a visual feast, more so for lovers of fantasy and escapism.
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nGods of Egypt is one of those movies in which most of the surroundingsnare computer generated. In this sense Gods of Egypt is like the Star Warsnmovies, which is normally something that I frown upon. I’ve always resisted “all CGI” movies, where only the actors are real. Sadly, this is the facenof the new Fantasy/Science Fiction film. They’ve evolved into this; we might asnwell accept it. Stop motion, matte paintings and the use of miniatures have allnbeen replaced by computer generated images, which is fine. It’s just anothernform of art, thought if I had to choose, I’d choose practical old schoolneffects. Call me old fashion but they had more artistry to them if you ask me. Inhave to admit that this “all CGI” element of this film was the main reason whynI didn’t go see it in theaters. Yet I have to admit that like all types ofnspecial effects, when done right, they can (and should) blow you away. I have to say that on Gods of Egypt theneffects worked extremely well. There’s this show stopping scene with these twongiant monster Cobra snakes attacking Horus that was just awesome. Actually, what Gods of Egypt feels the mostnlike is those old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies, with all the monsters andncreatures.

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nAlex Proyas brought Egypt to life in grand fashion. Gods ofnEgypt feels like one of those big budget bible movies like Ben Hur (1925) ornThe Ten Commandments (1956), you know, films with thousands of extras and hugensets, only this time the sets and the extras are mostly digital. Alex Proyas isnfamous for directing dark moody films like The Crow (1994) and Dark City (1998),nso Gods of Egypt is a change of pace for Proyas. This is a huge fantasy, actionnadventure, which in my opinon Proyas directed with gusto, with an affection fornthis type of film. If only it hadn’t tanked so spectacularly at the box office…it’snone of those films that didn’t deserve to fail at all, I’m sure it will connectnwith audiences down the road. I place it among the cream of the crop of newnfantasy films like Immortals (2011), 300 (2006), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014)nor Brett Ratner’s extremely underrated Hercules (2014). One of the things that Gods of Egypt is beingnaccused of is of being “dumb”, and while I won’t be the first to admit it’s notnShakespeare, I have to say that it does play with its fair share of importantnthemes. I mean, here’s a movie in which the Gods learn to care for the people,nthey learn the value of humans, of the ones they consider less than them. Here’sna movie where Gods die and tyranny rules the land as the people suffer. Here’sna film where true love conquers even the cold arms of death itself. All thesenthemes, embellished by awesome effects, a quick pace and likable characters, Inask: what’s not like? I say give this one a chance, you probably overlooked it,nsame as I did.