March 25, 2016
Kirsten Meehan Editor
The year of 2016 delivers its first big-budget flop with Alex Proyas’s “Gods of Egypt,” an action-fantasy-mythological disaster of a film featuring dialogue out of rejected Lifetime script, graphics out of a Playstation One game and Gerard Butler playing basically the same character he did in “300,” only now as the antagonist. The plot itself takes place in an Ancient Egypt, where the Gods are very much corporeal, eight feet tall — an effect that comes off jarring and inconsistent — and bleed golden blood — an effect that, frankly, looks terrible. Osiris, the current ruler of the land, is stepping down off the throne to let his son Horus take his place. Horus is a lazy, arrogant playboy of a prince who should very obviously not be king. Set, played by Gerard Butler, crashes the inauguration, kills Osiris, steals Horus’s eyes, and takes the throne for himself. This causes havok in the land and disrupts the lives of the two mortal protagonists, the thief Bec and his lady-love, Zaya. Bec uses his super-thief skills to steal one of Horus’s eyes back and return it to him. Thus, a journey to take
Arts & Entertainment
the Racquette
7
Review: Gods of Egypt back Egypt begins, and spans the rest of the two-hour movie. On paper, this doesn’t look that awful. Inside this flashy CGI mess is probably an okay movie. Maybe not a great movie, but an okay one. And, to be fair, there are a few moments that work. Some scenes have legitimately good CGI, such as the representation of Apophis and the snake creatures Set’s assassins ride. Bec, despite being a cheap Aladdin knockoff, is fairly likable, and not as annoying as he seemed to be in the trailers. Élodie Yung’s portrayal of Hathor, the Goddess of Love, is a solid performance as well. That being said, “Gods of Egypt” fails on so many other levels that the few redeeming qualities drown in the qualities that condemn it. It seems like it was written by four different rooms of writers, none of whom were speaking to each other, possibly out of spite. The clunkiness of the dialogue becomes even more apparent as it frequently switches from a very formal tone which imitates antiquity, and then to something that sounds a lot more like how people speak today. This produces grandiose speeches and narration about “the power of love” that sound like they
really want to mean something important, but wouldn’t impress a fourth-grader. It also creates the probably unintentionally hilarious proclamation of “What is the essence of lettuce?” given by Thoth, the God of Wisdom. Horus’s response to this is, “Damn it man, it’s just lettuce!” and is one of actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s more snortworthy moments of scenerychewing in this role. The acting overall is a mixed sarcophagus. It ranges from passable-but-wooden, such as Courtney Eaton’s Zaya, to slightly better than the Disney channel movie he looks like he jumped out of, such as Brenton Thwaites’s Bec. Élodie Yung’s Hathor is solidly good, Geoffrey Rush’s Ra is better than it has any right to be, considering the movie it’s in, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Horus is the epitome of an actor not really caring about the role he’s playing. The only performance really worth talking about is Gerard Butler playing Set, which is really what makes this movie watchable. Set is a slightly more evil version of Leonidas from “300,” down to the red cape and beard. Butler really milks his potential as an action star in this role, instead of playing up Set’s villain
potential, and makes it way too easy to root for the bad guy as opposed to the whiny hero. He seems to be the only actor on set who is having fun, and that at least makes him enjoyable to watch. The CGI, while it has its moments of quality, often dips into a level of bad that is distracting, including one moment where the background literally loops and shows the same thing twice. And the bad moments are, unfortunately, much more memorable than the good ones.
“It’s bad, but not quite the fascinating type of bad that makes a movie ‘so bad it’s good.’” The plot itself is actually very accurate to actual Egyptian mythology. It cites small details about the myths regarding Osiris’s death and the creation of the world, both showing that the writers probably have done their research. The director himself was born and raised in Egypt. However, even this is somewhat counteracted by
the fact that the cast portraying Egyptians and Egyptian Gods is predominantly white. Reading interviews with Proyas, the director, gives the impression that this was done more out of stupidity and the lure of a starstudded cast than any actual malice, but it certainly doesn’t help this movie’s case. Normally, “Gods of Egypt” is the kind of film that would receive a condescending pat on the back and a “good try” from critics. The fact that it had a 140 million dollar budget and not a cent of that can be seen in its quality has made this film the center of a storm of mockery. That mockery is mostly deserved. Is this the next “Plan 9 From Space,” “The Room,” or “Showgirls?” Probably not. It’s bad, but it’s not quite the fascinating type of bad that makes a movie ‘so bad it’s good.’ It is, however, a type of bad that is very much its own. It’s absolutely not worth a theater price, but if you have a group of friends who enjoy watching and mocking bad movies, it might be worth a rent or a stream. Other than that, there are better movies about Gods, better movies about Egypt and better movies with Gerard Butler. Watch one of those.
Roxy Theater: March 25 - 31 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (153 min) 6:30, 9:30 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 12:15, Fri 3:00, Mon 2:00
PG-13
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 3D (153 min) 9:00 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 3:00, Fri, Mon 1:45
PG-13
The Divergent Series: Allegiant Part 1 (120 min) 6:50, 9:20 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 12:30, Thurs, Fri 3:00, Mon 2:00
PG-13
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (94 min) 7:00, 9:10 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 12:45, Fri 3:00, Mon 2:00
PG-13
Zootopia (2D) (108 min) 7:00, 9:10 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 12:45, Thurs 3:00, Fri, Mon 2:00
PG
10 Cloverfield Lane (103 min) 6:50 Nightly Matinees Sat, Sun 12:45, Thurs 2:00 Mon 3/28 NO 6:50
PG-13
Hail Ceaser (100 min) Matinee Thurs 2:00
PG-13
Deadpool (108 min) Matinee Thurs 2:00
R
CINEMA 10 Presentation: Diary of a Teenage Girl (102 min) Mon March 28 7:15
R