The career trajectory of Alex Proyas is one that personally fills me with great sorrow, having lapped up his early work with glee. Breaking into the Hollywood mainstream with The Crow, and then immediately following that up with the weird and wonderful Dark City, the Australian director proved to be an endlessly inventive talent with an eye for wholly unique visuals. Then Knowing saw all the good will he had garnered come crashing down with a tornado of preposterous storytelling, muddy science, and Nic Cage going full Nic Cage. He hasn’t been seen or heard of for seven years, and now he makes his come back with Gods of Egypt, a wannabe epic fantasy that got off to the wrong foot that whitewashed a cast of Egyptian deities with the likes of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerard Butler, and Geoffrey Rush. That proved to be the last of it’s worries though, as Gods of Egypt proves to an incoherent, hollow mess that all the impressive CGI in the world can’t save.
We find ourselves in an alternative Egypt that takes its cue from Discworld, a flat kingdom where nine feet tall gods walk with mortals on one side and darkness reigns supreme on the other. Everything is coming up Millhouse for the inhabitants of this world, their until God of the Desert Set (Butler) wrests control of the kingdom from his nephew Horus (Coster-Waldau), placing the kingdom under an oppressive regime where only the rich will find peace in the afterlife. Teaming up with mortal thief Bek (Brenton Twaites), Horus sets out on a quest to retrieve his rightful seat on the throne. That’s Gods of Egypt in a nutshell, the same type of good vs. evil story we’ve seen countless times before. The gods transforming into golden skinned beasts or gigantic monsters are pretty to look at, but they’re lost to narrative that buckles under the weight of endless exposition and bone headed plot choices. It’s inability to engage the audience is the biggest problem, with the admittedly fantastic work Proyas has constructed soon becoming dull to the point that you will be looking at your watch only to see that only ten minutes have gone by.
The story trips from one scene to another with no rhyme or reason, with much of the story boiling down to Bek and Horus bickering, getting into a scrape, winning the day by defeating a giant monster. Wash, rinse, repeat, with some guff about the underworld throw in for good measure. The cast could have been the one shining light here, but they too fall victim to the lazy script, with Coster-Waldau being the biggest casualty. The hero of the piece, he ultimately comes across as big headed, unlikable buffoon who doesn’t change one iota during the course of the story, making any attempts to turn the audience to his side laughable. Butler fares slightly better, just by virtue of the fact that he chews the scenery around him like he hasn’t eaten for days. The rest of the cast just sort of sit there, delivering their lines with the conviction of an actor just picking up a pay check. It’s especially heart breaking when you consider Chadwick Boseman, here playing God of Wisdom Thoth, who pretty much stole the show just a few short months ago in Captain America: Civil War.
The seeds are sown for a sequel (or as it is with Hollywood in this day and age, multiple sequels), but considering what’s on offer here, none will be forthcoming. Egyptian mythology has been mined to great effect on the big screen before, but this is one example where the tomb should have been left under the sand where it belongs.
We find ourselves in an alternative Egypt that takes its cue from Discworld, a flat kingdom where nine feet tall gods walk with mortals on one side and darkness reigns supreme on the other. Everything is coming up Millhouse for the inhabitants of this world, their until God of the Desert Set (Butler) wrests control of the kingdom from his nephew Horus (Coster-Waldau), placing the kingdom under an oppressive regime where only the rich will find peace in the afterlife. Teaming up with mortal thief Bek (Brenton Twaites), Horus sets out on a quest to retrieve his rightful seat on the throne. That’s Gods of Egypt in a nutshell, the same type of good vs. evil story we’ve seen countless times before. The gods transforming into golden skinned beasts or gigantic monsters are pretty to look at, but they’re lost to narrative that buckles under the weight of endless exposition and bone headed plot choices. It’s inability to engage the audience is the biggest problem, with the admittedly fantastic work Proyas has constructed soon becoming dull to the point that you will be looking at your watch only to see that only ten minutes have gone by.
The story trips from one scene to another with no rhyme or reason, with much of the story boiling down to Bek and Horus bickering, getting into a scrape, winning the day by defeating a giant monster. Wash, rinse, repeat, with some guff about the underworld throw in for good measure. The cast could have been the one shining light here, but they too fall victim to the lazy script, with Coster-Waldau being the biggest casualty. The hero of the piece, he ultimately comes across as big headed, unlikable buffoon who doesn’t change one iota during the course of the story, making any attempts to turn the audience to his side laughable. Butler fares slightly better, just by virtue of the fact that he chews the scenery around him like he hasn’t eaten for days. The rest of the cast just sort of sit there, delivering their lines with the conviction of an actor just picking up a pay check. It’s especially heart breaking when you consider Chadwick Boseman, here playing God of Wisdom Thoth, who pretty much stole the show just a few short months ago in Captain America: Civil War.
The seeds are sown for a sequel (or as it is with Hollywood in this day and age, multiple sequels), but considering what’s on offer here, none will be forthcoming. Egyptian mythology has been mined to great effect on the big screen before, but this is one example where the tomb should have been left under the sand where it belongs.
