Silver Screen Resolution, Take Two: Gods of Egypt

For my 2018 Resolution Project, I decided to take a page out of Lane’s book and do my own Silver Screen Resolution (hence the Take Two part of the title). There are a lot of movies out there I haven’t seen but feel like I should have, or movies that I’ve simply wanted to see and have yet to get around to it. With a deadline of some kind, now I’ll have to finally make a point to find them, get them, and watch them. My rules for the resolution are slightly different in that:

1. They must be spec-fic (this has not changed).
2. The movie will not be one that is in theaters or that would be part of a Sound Off!
3. They don’t have to be popular – or even something folks have heard about.

But I’ve decided to take my resolution to the next level as well, since I had more than 12 movies on my list that I wanted to see. And since we’re in “Take Two” mode, I might as well up the ante: I will instead be seeing two spec fic movies per month rather than just one. Next on the docket: Gods of Egypt.

Spoiler-free review below!

I’ve been meaning to see this ever since I saw the trailer because I knew it was going to be a beautiful trainwreck of a movie. I mean, we’re supposed to be in Egypt and already we have Gerard Butler as the god Set, Jaime Lannister — er, I mean Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — as Horus, and Brenton Thwaites as heroic thief Bek. Could we get any more non-Egyptian in this movie? (spoiler alert, the answer is yes.)

The plot is very similar to a lot of other god-filled movie plots. Set is the ruler of the desert, and he resents the fact that his brother Osiris is the king of all the abundant lands along the Nile. So what does he do? Kill Osiris and take over everything, of course. Osiris’ son Horus is exiled, his eyes removed and along with them, his power. It will take the cunning and skill of a thief named Bek to help restore Horus to the throne and in return, life will be brought back to his lover Zaya.

I was right that this movie was going to be terrible in a glorious way, the same way that Demolition Man and The Rock are dumb but fun. I have a soft spot for movies like these (I own the last two mentioned) because you can laugh and have a good time with them. They don’t take a lot of brainpower, and you can even occasionally care about the characters involved. There’s so much CGI in this movie you wonder if they used any real sets at all. And occasionally you wonder if the guys making the CGI got tired and wanted to finish a particular section so they rushed it. There’s a section where Horus is battling other lesser gods atop a waterfall and for a big budget movie, it looks pretty awful. I may have laughed. Not to be rude, but because I was surprised at how bad it looked.

Super CGI Egypt, at your service.

In fact, I laughed a lot at this movie with all its absurdities. Horus is a lot like Jaime Lannister in that he’s either indifferent or a total ass for most of the movie until finally realizing he actually cares. He frequently allows Bek to be put in danger despite the fact that he needs him to get his eye back and break into one of Set’s temples. They go from walking through a swamp to walking through a massive desert (how long were they out there? They don’t seem to be carrying any water. I don’t understand this topography…). A lot of the god’s powers, armor, and even innards (yes, you read that correctly) appear to be made of metal. And the thing that got me the most was Ra himself — played by none other than Geoffrey Rush. His name was on the DVD and for the entirety of the movie I wondered when he was going to show up. So when Horus and Bek fly into space to land on Ra’s magical boat (or glass spaceship, take your pick) and there’s Geoffrey Rush, I won’t lie, I laughed a lot. The whole thing just felt so absurd. Oh, and I’d also like to confirm that the Earth is flat. And Ra’s also a jerk who claims all his creations are special but got pretty, “What the hell is this stupid mortal doing on my boat?” when he saw Bek.

My favorite part was a more action-filled section featuring Set’s two hunters and their REALLY big snakes. These things could have eaten Tom Riddle’s basilisk. Their CGI was done really well so it was a fun scene to watch even though Bek put himself in the frying pan again and whoever did the writing for that section wasn’t paying attention or just didn’t get the memo:

Horus: “I’m not strong enough to withstand their venom yet!”
Snake proceeds to breathe fire.
Me: “…Wait. What? Since when does venom equal fire? I need more popcorn.”

Hi, I breathe regular fire and venom would be the least of your problems if I bit you.

And that’s what I’ve been telling people. Go see it, but get some friends and get some popcorn because you’re going to have a grand time poking fun at this movie. I get the feeling that Gerard Butler, while putting in effort, mostly just had a good time in this role. His voice/accent was that of Leonidas once again, and I think he enjoyed being wild and over the top. Ultimately, this feels like a movie Hollywood clearly thought was awesome and going to be a blockbuster, only to misjudge the public once again and leave us staring at them asking what sort of drugs they were on to think this was a good idea.

Tell me this doesn’t make you think of Transformers.

Images courtesy IMDB.com