Gods of Egypt (2016)
Having been to Egypt and having a little knowledge about the Gods and it's rich history i really thought i'd enjoy The Crow/Dark City director Alex Proyas' film. More than that, i wanted to enjoy it.
In fact at first i did enjoy it, however as the film, and more and more head in hands moments played out, i realised i was thinking how i could possibly get to the end of the two hour running time. Quite simply Gods of Egypt is a good idea - having the Gods live on Earth amid battles for the throne - but it's final product verges on the awful.
The main problem is everything is acted against a green screen. This works well with films such as 300 (2006) and Sin City (2005), two films that are of a much smaller scale than Gods of Egypt. This film attempts the near impossible with it's CGI and looks clunky and at times no better than 70's Doctor Who in it's realism. Certainly the Gods in animal form look impressive but cityscapes and crowd sequences are shoddy. It had a budget of $140m but it doesn't show.
Secondly the script and characterization are borderline embarrassing. Not once does Proyas let his characters sit down in a normal building (ie- not CGI) and interact, it's all so hectic, everything is so vital in pushing the film forward to the point that none of it is. The acting is unfortunately brought down to the level of everything else with everyone from Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush and Rufus Sewell unable to bring anything positive to the table. It was said at the time of release, the film should have used minority actors rather than white stars and a case can certainly be made for this, but even the likes of Idris Elba, Denzel Washington and Will Smith (Three of Hollywood's biggest draws) couldn't have done anything with this film, so abysmal it is.
If Gods of Egypt were a superhero film then it ranks alongside Green Lantern rather than Batman Returns.
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