Holy cow did I have fun with this film! Within the first five minutes, GODS OF EGYPT reminded me of two types of movies. A Roger Corman blockbuster knock-off from the early Eighties, and a Cannon Films production. An attempt to make a Sword & Sandals action epic with “cutting-edge special effects”, but with no budget.
The “adventure” that is GODS OF EGYPT takes place in ancient Egypt of all places. But this Egypt is not of the real world. We're dealing with pure fantasy here. Which works for me because I grew up on Sinbad movies and the original CLASH OF THE TITANS. Just to give you an idea; Ra the sun god, cruises around the realm's (because I'm not 100% it's planet Earth) orbit in a space boat. Hands down the coolest thing in the movie! I'm an easy sell for fantasy like this because I grew up on Sinbad films, BEASTMASTER, KRULL, and CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981).
So as I was saying our adventure takes place in Egypt and king Osiris is about to crown a new ruler, his son Horus. But uncle Set, god of darkness has other plans. After killing Osiris and leaving Horus powerless, Set becomes the new king of Egypt.
Enter our mortal “hero” Aladdin, oops I mean Bek, who is a thief and nuisance to Set. After getting his girlfriend killed and left to wander the afterlife, Bek seeks the aid of Horus to bring her back. The two make a pact with one another and with the aid of Bek, Horus might be able to pull himself together and take back the throne from his uncle.
Getting right down to it, what makes GODS OF EGYPT not so great is the special effects. We're dealing with what looks like 90's CGI and some of the fight scenes are done with old school green screen. One fight scene in particular is so bad that they try to hide the cheapness with clever editing, but it only made matters worse.
Next, the performances in the movie doesn't help matters much either. Thanks to Brenton Thwaites, Bek is one of those characters that you wouldn't mind something terrible happening to them. Like falling into a pit of baby scorpions. Or getting ran over by a chariot!
I liked Jaime Lannister (not even going to try and spell his real name) who played Horus. He did a decent job, but lazy like the rest of the cast.
There's fun to be had only if the movie didn't take itself so seriously. In my opinion there was only one actor who knew what type of film GODS OF EGYPT should have been! Geoffrey Rush, who played the sun god Ra,he was the only actor who understood the tone of the film. His character sells the fantasy universe, it's a shame the rest of the movie did not earn this level of awesomeness.
Do I think that GODS OF EGYPT is getting some unfair press/reviews? Yes. Is the movie good? It's a decent enough B-movie that would be better if it didn't take itself so seriously at times. And the special effects could use some work. But like I said earlier, I did have fun watching GODS OF EGYPT. Suspend your disbelief and have fun in a fantasy Egypt. I'm serious about the Corman and Cannon Films comparison.
With that being said, I cannot recommend GODS OF EGYPT. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that a lot of critics hated the film. A select few of their opinions I'd say is valid and worth listening to, the rest are just assholes. Or maybe I'm the delusional one? The entertaining factor that the movie made me think of all the cheesy 80's fantasy movies I watched as a kid may not be the best recommendation for others?
No comments:
Post a Comment