Gods of Egypt takes place in an alternate world where the Earth is
flat and mythological Egyptian gods live among mortals. The gods are like humans in appearance, but
they are of greater height, their blood is gold, and they can take animal-deity
forms. The movie starts with the desert
god Set (Gerald Butler) seizing the throne of Egypt from the rightful heir, Horus
(Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), god of the air.
Set beats Horus in a duel and takes off his powerful eyes. But before Set can deliver the killing blow, Hathor
(Elodie Yung) – the goddess of love, and Horus’ lover – begs Set to spare Horus’
life in exchange for her serving as his mistress. A year later, a young human thief named Bek
(Brenton Thwaites) steals one of Horus’ eyes from Set’s treasure vault, and
brings it to the blind Horus. Driven by
different motivations, the mortal and the god form an unlikely alliance to free
Egypt from Set’s tyrannical rule.
When Gods of Egypt came out earlier this year, the consensus was that it’s
an awful movie. So I wasn’t keen of
watching it. But now that I’ve seen it for
myself, I actually had fun. And not
because I think it’s a trainwreck of a movie and I was amused of its failures. I legitimately found enjoyment with it as an
Egyptian mythology-themed, action-adventure film.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s by no means an epic movie – though it
has the materials that could have made it so.
It’s not free from stupidity, incoherence, and clichés. But the spin on Egyptian mythology and the
character arcs made the story appealing to me, despite being corny in general. Visually, it’s CGI heavy. There are times it looks phony and unattractive,
but there are also scenes which I found visually thrilling and aesthetically
pleasing.
Again, I’m not saying Gods of Egypt is a great movie. It’s flawed and could have been done better. But as far as “popcorn” entertainment is
concerned, it would do. I personally
think it’s an okay movie, and better than Clash
of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans
(which I found to be snoozefests). Maybe
it’s because I didn’t watch Gods of Egypt in a theater.
So in a “small screen” perspective, I got to like this movie. This probably means it would have worked much better as a TV or
direct-to-video movie.
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