MOVIE REVIEW: Gods of Egypt (2016)
First, a quote from the Wikipedia page for the movie Gods of Egypt:
...the world of Gods of Egypt never really existed. It is inspired by Egyptian mythology, but it makes no attempt at historical accuracy because that would be pointless — none of the events in the movie ever really happened. It is about as reality-based as Star Wars — which is not real at all...Maybe one day if I get to make further chapters I will reveal the context of the when and where of the story. But one thing is for sure — it is not set in Ancient Egypt at all.
Director Alex Proyas, December 2015So when I heard this movie announced, I had to see it. I not only had to see it because it was an obviously bad movie, but also because of the obvious white-washing happening in yet another movie about Africa’s history. I am not its guardian; she can defend herself AND she has no shortage of defenders. It keeps happening despite Africa’s defenders, in so many ways (Spike’s “TUT”, the entire modern Mummy franchise except the Chinese one, FOX’s cancelled pilot “Hieroglyph”, Exodus: Gods and Kings, the Ten Commandments, and on and on and on.) I spoke about the white-washing with my old college buddy Kuhn about it and I don’t know if I offended him or not with my defense and intensity (judge for yourself), but he said, “I look forward to your review”…which I hadn’t done in a while.
The first thing I noticed about the fantasy-Ancient Egypt of this movie when I watched is there were so many out-of-the-way set pieces. I know the borders of Ancient Egypt are big and mostly desert, but there are so many. That, and titanic, fire-breathing cobras: they really gave the world an over-the-top feel. I was very blown away by Ra’s solar barge and the representation of his battle with the “Enemy of Ra”, sometimes called Apep or Apophis — depending on the translation. Dat old dude Ra (played by old-ass Geoffrey Rush) gave him the business, and it was EPIC — the scale and range of the combat made it very awesome. But the story isn’t about Ra, and barely about Apep/Apophis, but about a human named Bek.
Not to be confused with the Ancient Egyptian/Kemetic god of protection Bes, our protagonist Bek (portrayed by Brendon Thwaites) is a live-action Aladdin brought to life by easy quips and an undying love for his lady love Zaya (actress/model Courtney Eaton). As a random love interest is wont to do, she sits around for Bek to show up and press lips with him. She accepts his lifestyle stolen merch like a dumbass, but she’s a good girl at heart — she worships the Lord of the Air, Horus.
Said Horus is played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (aka Jamie Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones) and is to be the center of a coronation held by his father Osiris (played by Bryan Brown, star of F/X: Death by Illusion) and mother Isis (actress Rachael Blake). There are many gods present to witness Horus’ crowning, namely Nephthys (actress Emma Booth) and Hathor (actress Elodie Yung, from the Netflix series Daredevil), amongst an entire litany of gods unnamed. Set (played by Leonidas himself, Gerard Butler) shows up fashionably late, and changes the way the Osiris myth normally plays out for the sake of story coherency and what I can only imagine is censorship. No penis-eating fish in this film to be found.
The rules of the world change overnight and Bek’s world is turned upside-down when he is separated from Zaya. He wants her back, so he teams up with Horus (the once-to-be king blinded in the fight against Set and exiled) to get her back. Now it’s a buddy cop movie the size of the Sahara…which has a lot of plants and water for the geographical area represented. Blah blah blahzay, stuff happens, good triumphs over evil, the guy gets the girl, the end. Believe me, there were no spoilers there because without the visuals this movie would be BO-RING. The politics between the characters was as impenetrable as the incestuous lineage of the Ennead, and mattered less. For all that stuff that happens, the visuals kept me interested. Except for a choice few.
The shifting between scale of deities and men (the gods in this movie are 8~9 feet tall, in comparison to the 5- to 6-foot tall men) was bad because you could totally see the eyes of the deity looking where the opposing man’s head would be, and the man would be looking where the god’s navel is. They don’t look at each other in their faces, and I understand it’s a technical glitch. The second hiccup was the metallic god-forms, prominently featured in the posters. Horus in gold and Set in black, these suits of armor form over the principal deities and are supposed to make them look cool. Instead, they make every combat involving them look ridiculous. They animations moved stiffly, and had no real way to make them cool — even if Set went the extra mile to do the same to his own in the progress of the story. If I wanted to watch a bad CG fight involving stuff that looks like robots, I’d watch the Transformers movies.
That said, MOST of the visuals are top-notch but the story and casting needs work. The issues with the story are explained in the previous paragraphs, but the Wikipedia quote at the beginning is a nice attempt by director Alex Proyas at giving himself a way out of seeming like he and his casting director DIDN’T whitewashing, but nope. Mr. Proyas could have invested in almost any other mythology and told another tale, or created one whole cloth like Dark City (an underrated class, that one). If Manosh Shyamalan can cast all the working Indian/Middle Eastern-looking actors in Hollywood in The Last Airbender (a movie whose source material had no Indian or Middle Eastern people in it) and not include a single East Asian, then Proyas could have bucked the trend and gone “full Kemet”. He actually could put people who looked the part of ancient Egyptian/Kemetic people in principal roles, fantasy world be damned. I mean, if you’re gonna leave Black African people out of your fantasy version of Kemet, the LEAST you could have done was put in people who looked like you in principal roles. Rufus Sewell gets a pass because he gets better with age.
Touching back on the actors, I have to give up my applause to Chadwick Boseman (he was in 42, Get on Up, and will be playing Black Panther in his standalone movie and in Captain America: CIVIL WAR) for working with the script he was given. He played the god of knowledge, Thoth, and he has the ability to multiply himself. I know they gave him a bit of a comic role, and I loved it. That was cool, but it makes me wonder: is this how the filmmakers got around having more Black people in the movie? By letting one Black guy multiply himself over and over again? That may be too deep, but I can only imagine that someone has made a joke about this very notion. There were so many other opportunities to include Africans in the show but I only counted four whose faces I could see clearly, including Thoth: two female visitors to Horus’ coronation, and a little girl that became instrumental at the resolution of the film. That’s about it, but there needs to be more. Fantasy or not.
CHOICE CUTS:
- TRAP. SEQUENCE. Pretty fun and psychotic.
- For all you Flat Earthers around the globe, there’s a real nice treat for you in this movie. You will love it and it is beautiful.
- The narrator of the film is Bek in his self-professed older years, but they never say in what circumstances. He’s just a disembodied voice at the beginning and end, providing bookends.
- I hope Alex Proyas DOES make a sequel as he wishes, so we can find out what happens next in this fantasy world.
- The fight at the waterfall was BAD. Not “bad meaning good” or “so bad it’s good” either. Just BAD.
If you want to watch a fantasy movie loosely based on Egyptian/Kemetic mythology, go watch the 1994 film Stargate (not the SG-1 series, because they gave the world a shitty presentation of Hathor). It makes no bones about casting for the area. This movie is just OK, if only for the scenes involving Ra, the solar barge, and his war against Apep/Apophis.
— previously published 2/27/2016 on Facebook Notes —
