Review: Gods of Egypt

Gods of Egypt (12A)

USA 2016 127 mins Dir: Alex Proyas Cast: Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Young, Chadwick Boseman, Geoffrey Rush

What makes a bad movie a bad movie, exactly? Is it a general sense of incompetence in the filmmaking, or a sense that an already incompetent movie is labouring under the weight of its own self-importance? Make no mistake, 2016’s cinematic whipping boy Gods of Egypt, newly arrived on UK shores following an absolute roasting Stateside, is something to behold: a campy historical extravaganza so cheesy that every audience member deserves a complimentary fondue set upon viewing.

But creaky and undeniably awful though it is, the movie is so utterly dedicated to its own flippant ridiculousness that quite the odd thing happens: it becomes endearingly stupid rather than hatefully so. No one is surely taking this nonsense seriously, least of all director Alex Proyas and his cast (with one critical exception), and for that reason it deserves more grudging respect than, say, 2016’s utterly grim and joyless Batman v Superman, the very epitome of a dumb movie that took itself far too seriously.

A conflation of steampunk sci-fi cliches and wince-inducing appropriation of Ancient Egyptian myth (complete with controversially whitewashed cast), all of which has been shot using Australian tax breaks, it launches audiences into an alternate version of history where the Egyptian gods have taken on human form, towering over their loyal subjects but not averse to indulging in Transformers-esque shape-shifting when the occasion calls for it.

When inexplicably Scottish Set (Gerard Butler, who else?) murders his brother Osiris (Bryan Brown, who looks like he’d rather be mixing a cocktail) and removes the glowing eyes of his nephew Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), he soon seizes the kingdom and threatens to plunge it into darkness. One mildly funny gag sees him accosting obilisk builder Urshu (Rufus Sewell) for building a 20-storey monument that’s barely big enough. It soon falls to mortal Bek (Brenton Thwaites, complete with Kenneth Connor’s Carry on Cleo hairdo) to team up with the exiled Horus to bring down the Scottish/Egyptian tyrant, a journey that will also involve a visit to sun god Ra (Geoffrey Rush) orbiting the Earth on an offshoot from Babylon 5.

With every line delivered with a cocked eyebrow, hilariously awful CGI effects and enough storytelling inconsistencies to make the Sphinx blush, it undeniably marks something of a comedown for one-time The Crow and Dark City visionary Proyas. The word foolish doesn’t quite cut it but there’s no denying that the bonkers story barrels along at a fair old clip and there’s just enough self-awareness in (most) of the performances to make it a borderline tolerable experience. Special mention must go to Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman who plays god of writing Thoth as an amusingly mincing procrastinator struggling to come up with a definition for lettuce.

As has been reiterated: nonsense. Giddily daft though the vast majority of the movie is, it’s not helped by Butler’s brazenly anachronistic, shouty performance as the scheming Set (“This… is… Egypt!”) and CGI character fights that would barely pass muster in a cut-price SFX sci-fi special. Even so, there’s a genuine attention to detail in the richly appointed costume designs and sets and the movie never pretends to be anything other than the dumb spectacle it is, ultimately inviting us to laugh at, as well as with, its own ludicrousness. Take that, Zack Snyder.