‘Gods Of Egypt’ Review Roundup: Lots Of Action, Little Substance
The Gods of Egypt reviews are in, and critics are not amused. Of course, if you saw the trailers, you probably knew the movie was going to push the CG effects and deliver little else.
Some moviegoers, such as die-hard Transformers fans, won’t mind it at all. Others expecting something on the same level as The Ten Commandments, or even The Mummy, will be left wondering why they put money down to see this.
The story is your typical mythological setup. A mortal hero is the only one who can save the land, with the help of reluctant gods. If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably read Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson saga, or the Kane chronicles, or the new Magnus Chase series. It’s also the same way Clash of the Titans began. In short, you’ve seen the premise before, and the official Gods of Egypt reviews aren’t going to surprise you.
Roger Moore, writing on his personal blog, Rogers Movie Nation, is one of many whose opinions have contributed to the film earning a collective review of 31 out of 100 on Metacritic. He states that the film has very little history and almost nothing Egyptian about it. It uses the same forced-perspective visual effects to make the gods (Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Brian Cox) look massive next to mortals like the thief Bek (Brenton Thwaites) and his girlfriend Zaya (Courtney Eaton).
A mortal thief is expected to save the world? This sounds like the plot to a certain critically slammed movie based on a Rick Riordan book. If you’re getting flashbacks of Logan Lerman and Alexandra Daddario, you know what that book is. The Gods of Egypt reviews are actually lower than the ones for those films based on children’s fantasy.
Roger Ebert, from the renowned critic’s website whose video reviews were once a must-see, gave Gods of Egypt the highest score of them all so far, a 50 out of 100. Site reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz says the film basically starts out like the end battle from Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, as Set (Gerard Butler) and Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) fight it out in humanoid form before converting themselves into giant armored animal forms. Set removes Horus’ eyes and throws him in a tomb instead of killing him (after the goddess of love begs him to be merciful).
This is where the mortal thief Bek starts his quest to stop chaos from erupting. Of course, he only does this to hopefully bring his dead love back from the underworld, borrowing heavily from The Mummy Returns.
This is about all of the story there is behind the film, according to the Gods of Egypt reviews. From that point on, it’s all a string of action sequences rendered in typical CG which audiences are tiring of.
Forbes Review: ‘Gods Of Egypt’ Is Gloriously Gonzo, Unapologetically Over-The-Top Fantasy Fun https://t.co/q8FMrFGSmI
— Dev Paudel (@DevOmics) February 25, 2016
New York Daily News says that the film plays out like a bad video game as gargantuan gods walk among mortals. Obviously, this is a clear deviation from the Egyptian mythologies the film is loosely based on. The most interesting character in the film is the ironically token black guy, who this Gods of Egypt review says is dressed up like a reject from RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Considering how formulaic this movie appears to be, borrowing its best elements from better films, it will probably bring in the box office revenue. Don’t expect these gods to take down Deadpool though, since the Ryan Reynolds anti-hero film is almost the exact opposite with lots of story and personality.
There is even the chance that this film will become a new franchise. According to the Gods of Egypt reviews, that could elicit as many groans as the Transformers series. If it can elicit the same number of fans, we can probably expect a franchise from it.
[Image via Lionsgate]
