Movie review: Imagine the worst costume epic imaginable. Imagine no more. Here it is. Rating: 1 star out of 4.
Imagine the worst costume epic imaginable. Imagine no more.
It exists.
Behold. Ripped abs, bulging biceps, cavernous cleavage. Computer-generated images that shriek “Fake!” with their every agitated pixel. Acting at the level of a grade-school play. A quasi-symphonic score that never, ever ceases its sonic assault.
Movie Review ★
‘Gods of Egypt,’ with Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Directed by Alex Proyas, from a screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. 127 minutes. Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, and some sexuality. Several theaters.
A brimming banquet of beefcake and cheese is here set before us in “Gods of Egypt.”
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See it if you dare.
Gerard Butler is here, displaying his mighty musculature in a manner reminiscent of his King Leonidas character in “300.” He’s playing the villainous ancient Egyptian god Set, a brother-knifing, father-stabbing, wife-mutilating deity who exults in his badness.
Opposing him is his nephew Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), another slab of beef whose eyes Set yanks out early on.
They continually crash and bash at each other, sometimes as winged armored warriors, crushing to computer-generated flinders the movie’s schlocky-looking palaces, temples, cities, etc.
Flitting around the edges of the mayhem is a smirky young human thief, Bek (Brenton Thwaites, looking like he’s on his way to the prom), who wants Horus to retrieve his murdered sweetie (Courtney Eaton) from the land of the dead. No easy task for a sulking god (hey, he misses those eyeballs).
Offered the opportunity by Horus to be made a god himself, Bek rejoins, “What would I be the god of? Stupidity?”
Bingo. Clearly an individual who knows his limitations.
At one point, Set rips the pulsing, glowing blue brain out of the skull of the god of wisdom. I’d say he’d earlier done the same deed to “Egypt’s” filmmakers.