Due to some personal circumstances, I was unable to post up my review for Gods of Egypt before its release, so let me give you the Readers’ Digest version.

  • What is it?

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An Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) directed big budget fantasy adventure set in an ancient Egypt where 10-foot tall gods live and walk among men, occasionally taking time off to turn into badly rendered bits of CGI. One of these gods is the beloved Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who was all set to ascend to his father’s throne and become god-king of Egypt, until he was violently betrayed by ambitious and warmongering god-uncle Set (Gerard Butler) who wanted it all for himself. With Horus left blinded and broken, it’s up to a human thief named Bek (Brenton Thwaites) to help the god defeat Set, regain his crown and restore peace to the world.

  • I would like this if I like…

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Really shiny things. And racism. Basically, you need to be the filmgoing equivalent of a magpie who gets easily distracted by glistening bits of flotsam so as not to notice that a movie set in Africa stars a Dane, a Scot, a couple of Aussies and some Englishfolk. Admittedly, besides for the whitewashing, there is a properly epic mythological story being told here – even if it’s told in a shoddy, sometimes confusing fashion – but if you’re down with seeing a badass mohawk-sporting Geoffrey Rush as Ra going toe to godly toe with the massive world-destroying demon Apophis who is all fangs and evil, then you’ll at least get some kicks out of this.

  • Is it good?

Despite a few moments of mythological awesomeness and the occasional hint of a fun adventuresome tale – and at least Coster-Waldau seems to be having fun with the material – Gods of Egypt ends up being nothing more than a bad videogame cutscene stretched to full feature film length, filled with about as much depth as it has racial diversity. Characters mostly just hop from one clumsily staged end-level boss fight action setpiece to the other, with very little dramatic fibre between them, and it’s kind of shocking how a movie filled with so many brightly coloured moments of godly stuff punching other godly stuff in the face can often end up as dull as it does.

  • Should I watch it?

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Yeah, you should. If you enjoy dumb movies that trade an abundance in CG for brains. Or if you just want to see how it’s possible to gild a turd, put a $140 million price tag on it and sell it to Hollywood.

Last Updated: February 29, 2016

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5 Comments

  1. Proyas is not happy with critics atm – he thinks this movie is awesome & everyone’s raining on his parade.

    Reply

    • Pariah

      February 29, 2016 at 09:58

      That reminds me of another director. One I think that directed the “worst movie ever made”? Not sure, but it’s triple facepalm worthy.

      Reply

  2. Lardus-For the Chimichangas!

    February 29, 2016 at 11:02

    Gods of Egypt isn’t so bad (though not worth 3 stars, I would go 2.5 stars). It has decent enough action and story actually if you go in not expecting too much. CGI could be better yes, and accents. But we enjoyed it enough. While I agree it would be better to see more ethnically appropriate actors, this is a Hollywood made movie, not an Egyptian/African made movie. Crying Racism for racism sake is getting old – not everything where diversity is lacking is racism! In my opinion it is the worst written review on this site so far.

    Reply

    • Allykhat

      March 4, 2016 at 11:56

      Agreed. Movie wasnt amazing but it wasnt that bad that I wanted to leave.
      As for the racism bit, gonna agree with you there.

      Reply

  3. James Francis

    March 1, 2016 at 12:49

    How is it that some of these movies have such big budgets and still don’t get the CG right?

    Reply

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