A COMMON thief changes an ancient world filled with mythical creatures in “Gods of Egypt.”
And if you are already getting altogether too excited to see this CG-filled romp through Mesopotamia, you may want to hold off taking a trip to the Middle East and cashing in your airline frequent flyer mileage because the “Gods” that populate this fantasy adventure are as silly as they are stupid.
In reality they are European and American actors filling roles that the producers of this tripe could have easily found strolling the streets of today’s Cairo.
Alas, we are stuck with Gerald Butler (“Olympus Has Fallen”) as the “evil” Set, determined to reign and rule ancient Egypt by the force of will only to be thwarted every step by Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Walder) in a winner-take-all finale.
Throw in some more really cool Egyptian “Gods” like Ra (“Geoffrey Rush”) and Anubis (Goran D. Kleut) and you have a true monster mash.
Not!
“Gods of Egypt” is a movie that leading man Butler has “phoned in,” clearly not wanting to do anything with this production than pick-up his fat paycheck and move along to the next “fallen” film—that being “London Has Fallen” which debuts next week.
Perhaps what is most insulting is there is no shred of any evidence that this freakish Egyptian world ever existed, except in the world of Greek-born director Alex Proyas. This film must have been hatched in Proyas’ balding head—a film that makes no sense whatsoever and only offers the smallest of accolades in the realm of CGI.
Nikolaj Coster-Walder as Horus
Who doesn’t love CGI? But clearly Butler was “acting” in front of either a blue or green screen which begs that actors like Butler continual to struggle to mentally conceive standing next to a massive 200 ft. tall snake ready to spring.
Boring.
Do you remember one of the worst movies of 2015—“The Last Witch Hunter?”
I’m trying very hard to forget it except that the same writing duo of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless who penned “Last Witch” also penned the same nonsense with “Gods of Egypt.”
Who in the world hires these guys? The writing in “Gods of Egypt” is as sophomoric as the acting.
Sigh.
There is no much to despise about “Gods of Egypt” that every moviegoer should check their brain’s frontal lobe at the concession stand.
Courtney Eaton as Zaya and Brenton Thwaites as Bek in a scene from “Gods of Egypt”
What makes this movie a candidate for one of the most stupid films of this young year 2016 is that God of Egypt was NOT filmed in Egypt. Not even Morocco. Not even Doha, Abu Dhabi or Dubai.
To save on production costs, and no doubt to make Mr. Butler and his on-screen buddies happy, “Gods of Egypt” was filmed at Fox Studios and in locations throughout Sydney.
Thankfully, the film has a short running time of 100 minutes so if you make a run out to the bathroom at least twice, you will save yourself from having to listen to the dreadful dialogue written by two Hollywood hacks.
There is no socially redeeming value to “Gods of Egypt” and I was rooting for the—wait for it—“evil” Set, hoping against hope that if Butler actually did take over Egypt, we all would be spared having to cover our ears, closing our eyes and gnashing our teeth … collectively forced to endure this charade.
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at theruffolos@readingruffolos.com.