Gods of Egypt

In 1994, director Alex Proyas gave us the neo-noir fantasy film, “The Crow.” It was a film that shows us a man who had everything taken from him, even his love, and come back from the dead to take his revenge on the ones responsible. Despite it mostly being remembered for the tragic passing of the film’s star, Brandon Lee, the film has such a very dark and intense style to it, similar to that of Tim Burton’s Batman films that came before. Hell, I’d say it even rivals up with them.

Despite Proyas having such a creative vision with “The Crow,” he’s never been able to recapture that same sense of greatness into any of his other films. Sure, “Dark City” was good, but it wasn’t anything special. And with his newest film, “Gods of Egypt,” I wasn’t expecting much to come of that either, except a decent popcorn film…I didn’t even get that.

“Gods of Egypt” tells of a world where the gods live among the mortals, and its king, Osiris is about to crown his son, Horus, as the next ruler. However, his jealous brother, Set, kills Osiris and takes Horus’s eyes, as the first of gods he hunts down to claim absolute power. After one of the eyes is returned to Horus, by a thief named Bek, the two now must defeat Set and restore balance to the lands.

The first problem I have about the film is that it is SO BORING. This film drags so damn much, with scenes that either go on too long or don’t add anything to the film at all, it felt longer than “Tranformers 4.” That’s how boring it, because nothing exciting happens. All those action scenes that are showcased in the trailer, they’re not as entertaining in the actual movie. They’re just cobbled messes of CGI and green-screen that almost reach “Legend of Hercules” levels of bad. But, at least that film had some kind of entertainment value to it, with how bad it was.

It also doesn’t help when even the cast doesn’t feel enthusiastic about it. Brenton Thwaites as Bek was obviously phoning it in, and his character trait is that he’s just an Aladdin knockoff. I’m not even joking: he’s a thief, a smart-ass, skilled and light on his feet, and has boyish charms that….he’s fucking Aladdin! Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who you may know as Jaimie Lannister from “Game of Thrones,” plays Horus, and his trait is the Moses archetype. Someone with bountiful perks that learns to care for those less fortunate than him, and learns a valuable lesson about how he treats others…how motivating. Gerard Butler plays Set, a jealous brother that was spoiled about Daddy never picking him as the favorite, so he goes all bad and stuff…people, I’m trying to grab at whatever I can get.

This film had been under a lot of controversy for casting white actors as Egyptians, but much like “Pan,” it wouldn’t have mattered if the casting was correct or not, because of how terrible the script is. Every character in just about every scene has a one-liner said, and all of them are incredibly distracting. Seriously, not a single character in this movie can go one scene without making some stupid remark, to where it went from annoying to pure aggravation. Granted, it’s not as bad as the douchebag scout from “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse,” but it’s still pretty bad.

I would have more to talk about, but with how little this movie cares about itself, it doesn’t deserve anymore of my efforts. Overall, “Gods of Egypt” is a tremendous piece of shit and is so far the worst film I’ve seen this year. The effects and action aren’t exciting, the characters are boring and stock, and the writing is piss-poor at best. Expect me to talk about this film again when I talk about my Worst of 2016.

Rating: 1/10