Gods of Egypt Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

Welcome to the world of mythology… where Egyptian gods are white, twice as tall as human beings and bleed gold instead of blood. Who could have known?

Genre: Action / Drama / Fantasy

Director: Alex Proyas

Cast: Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler, Courtney Eaton, Elodie Yung, Rufus Sewell, Chadwick Boseman, Geoffrey Rush, Bryan Brown & Rachael Blake.

Run Time: 127 min.

US Release: 26 February 2016

UK Release: 17 June 2016

German Release: 21 April 2016

So this review is coming a little later than usual, since Germany was one of the last countries to release this blockbuster in cinemas, but also because I decided to review Ratchet & Clank before uploading this one. I tried to dodge critiques by other reviewers before I went to watch this, but unfortunately I couldn’t escape them all. Nonetheless, I went in with a friend to enjoy this movie for what it is, and have a good time… And boy did we have a blast with this over-the-top CGI crapfest! I could not believe that this movie was directed by Alex Proyas, the guy who brought us The Crow and Dark City.

The sloppily written script is unoriginal and meshes together the plots of Disney’s Aladdin plus God of War III (PlayStation’s epic conclusion to the Greek mythological trilogy), while the visual aspects were ripped off from any Transformers blockbuster. Compared to Aladdin’s or Kratos’ story, however, this flick has no engaging narrative and simply piles up every cliché possible, in the hopes of creating some sort of narrative. The creators also try to convince the audience that it is an epic spectacle by scaling up everything on screen to a monstrous size. In other words, it is the equivalent of buying a sports car to compensate. 

The clunky dialogue is delivered so exaggerated and over-the-top it made everything sound hysterically bad. The screening room was in tears, laughing about the actors' inadequate line delivery! There truly is not a single positive thing I can say about Gods of Egypt, apart from the fact that the actors didn’t take their roles seriously and just had fun with what they were given. Maybe the only good thing that came out of this production is that it is so hilariously bad that it manages to entertain from beginning to end. The question that still lingers in my mind, though, is: what possessed studio executives to greenlight this film?

When it comes to the cast and characters, things do get more critical! It is one thing to make a fun-bad movie, but to depict nearly all Egyptian gods as white is a huge disgrace and a spit on Egyptian culture. Even most of the Egyptians on screen were depicted as Caucasian! This is whitewashing in its ugliest form! I don’t understand why Proyas, himself born in that country, decided to pick up this mythological monstrosity and ruin part of his own culture?

Gerard Butler stars in his second big-screen flop this year, and it’s even worse than London Has Fallen. Granted, he is aware that he signed up for a bad motion picture, but his loud and pretentious dialogue could not really save his character from being unintendedly funny. Watching him is rather embarrassingly amusing. Butler plays the villainous god Set, brother of Osiris, uncle to Horus and jealous of his sibling’s success. In a fit of rage, he kills his brother and blinds his nephew, thus banishing him from Egypt, and starts ruling as a tyrant. 

After seeing Brenton Thwaites in Son of a Gun, I was sure that this young actor would be going places. Well, I was wrong! After being in that suspenseful thriller, Thwaites decided to star in a mediocre comedy and a disappointing chick-flick, before ending up as Bek (a rip-off of the character Aladdin) in this monstrosity. He plays the clichéd, good-looking, and athletically talented lover of Courtney Eaton’s Zaya. Forced to work together with the blind Horus, both set off on an adventure to find his eyes so that Bek can save his girlfriend. Just as with the rest of the cast, Thwaite's line delivery is awful. 

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, one of Game of Thrones biggest stars, is cast to play the young and vain god Horus. Kicked off the throne by his Uncle and having lost his lover, the goddess Hathor, Horus thirsts for revenge against Set and thus makes a deal with Bek. This is the first time I saw Coster Waldau star in a big role in a motion picture, and I am seriously disappointed by his performance. I was not expecting a grand rendition, but at least to see something fun that would not embarrass the actor. Sadly, not even he managed to come out of this wreck unharmed. Geoffrey Rush and Elodie Yung rounded up the cast, as god/dess Ra and Hathor respectively, giving equally uninspired depictions of their godly characters. 

This movie is shot incredibly badly, with every scene looking artificially fake. Nearly everything that happens on screen is filmed in a green screen room. The fights look like over-rehearsed set-ups, while the effects plus computer-generated images range from looking jaw-dropping - such as the inside of Set’s pyramid- to excruciatingly appalling - as in the scene where Bek and Zaya are riding in a horse carriage. In fact, I was surprised at how bad the effects look at times, considering that we live in the age of digital wonder. With this much CG constantly being thrown into one's face, it is no surprise that the complete blockbuster feels synthetically bloated. 

Just as with the script and cinematography, the creators of this catastrophe decided that the sound effects and music needed to be grand and loud, to convince audiences that this picture is worth spending money on. Marco Beltrami composed the soundtrack to this film, which is a set of Egyptian melodies making one long, clichéd, “epic” composition. 

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Verdict: Gods of Egypt is a complete mess from start to finish. The overreliance on CGI, as well as basing its story on visual effects, drags this excuse for a feature even further into the pits of hell. The script barely exists and includes some of the worst dialogue I have heard in a long time, while displaying everything as big and loud as possible to try and make up for the plagiarised narrative. The performances by the cast are despicable and straight-out embarrassing. Even so, as excruciatingly bad as this flick is, it still manages to entertain, even if for the wrong reasons. I was laughing at it from beginning to end. Therefore, I will give Gods of Egypt a merciful 2.0 out of 10, but I don’t recommend you go see it in cinemas!

If you are planning to see this movie, wait until it is out to rent and watch it with a bunch of friends and some drinks.

Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of this disastrously bloated blockbuster! My next review, for Captain America: Civil War, will follow on Friday. Thank you very much for reading & if you found this review helpful, don’t forget to share it!