‘Gods of Egypt’ undeserving of afterlife
Print Edition
FIRST things first. Could the timing be any worse for a movie with a diversity problem as extensive as “Gods of Egypt”?
Only two days before #OscarsSoWhite, a movie comes out set in ancient Egypt starring white actors from Australia, Scotland and Denmark.
It’s worth noting, of course, that both Lionsgate and director Alex Proyas apologized back in November, saying their casting choices should have been more diverse.
They deserve credit for that, but it turns out they had even more to apologize for. Because “Gods of Egypt” is also a just plain bad movie. The plot is confusing, yet boring. The visuals look expensive, yet cheesily fake. And the performances are uninteresting.
We begin, as we said, in ancient Egypt — but in this Egypt, gods live among the mortals. The gods look just like the humans, only they’re much taller, and in really good shape, too.
We’re told in a voiceover that the good god Osiris has decided to crown his son, Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, of “Game of Thrones”), king. A vast crowd assembles for the coronation. But suddenly here comes Horus’ uncle Set, the god of darkness (Gerard Butler) Set thinks HE should be king. To achieve this, he stabs Osiris to death and maims Horus, tearing out his eyes.
A very bad period ensues for both gods and mortals. But there are only two mortals we’re supposed to care about: Bek (Brenton Thwaites) and Zaya (Courtney Eaton), an extremely attractive young couple who are much in love.
For reasons not worth explaining, Zaya suggests that Bek, whose main occupation is being handsome, should steal Horus’ eyes. These eyes (now glowing jewels) are being stored in a super-secret vault belonging to Set.
The idea is to return them to the wounded Horus, so he can fight back and retake the throne. But tragic complications develop. Bek and Horus become sort of a god-mortal buddy team, each with his own urgent agenda.
And suddenly they’re in outer space! On a space ship! We think! But we can’t promise!
It’s obvious the filmmakers were gunning for a sequel here. But this enterprise is so tiresome, it seems more likely headed for a long rest somewhere in the afterlife.
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