Drawing from a millennia of Western mythology and digging deep into the dark cabalistic lore of ancient Egypt, Alex Proyas has created a richly textured world of fantasy conceived from an unbridled imagination in “Gods of Egypt”. This is a world where the mortal coil bears heavily on deity and mortal alike, although divinity has its advantages.
For one, the living and breathing idols tower above their lesser cousins in stature and possess commensurate strength. They also have cover looks, center-fold worthy physiques, longer lifespans (not immortality, at least in this movie) and have unique supernatural abilities that can be transferred like modifications on a custom shop street racer. Otherwise, these giant-sized super humans are just exaggerated versions of ourselves with giant sized egos and an overinflated sense of self entitlement.
Gerald Butler plays Set, brother of Osiris (Bryan Brown) , son of Ra (Geoffrey Rush) and Uncle to Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). In the footsteps of a classical Greek tragedy of familial dysfunction and foibles, Set sets his dagger upon his elder brother while in embrace, rips his nephew’s eyeballs barehanded, steals his lovely lovely (did i mention very lovely?) wife, Hathor (Elodie Yung), and to top it off, shoots his Dad with his own firearm while tearfully pleading for his acceptance and love.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Horus, a fallen jock and posterboy for the Egyptian empire led by Ra, is an arrogant, privileged scion with a taste for debauchery, alcohol and easy wins who has his face kicked into the sand and retreats into the shadows more out of bitterness than humility. It seems that the gods, having been fed with silver spoons all their lives, are mostly without ambition and largely diffident to stretching themselves beyond the lounge chair. The humans, on the other hand, with idols to look up to, aspire to levels of achievement higher than their allotted rung on the food chain.
Enter our hero, the British-accented Bek (Brenton Thwaites), who refuses to bow to the gods and reaches for the impossible, like leaping across ravines and snatching his beloved from the cold dark kingdom of the afterlife. Blinded by loved, Bek seeks an alliance with Horus who is just plain blind, to be reunited with his lady, undertaking Herculean trials that involve meeting a Sphynx with Mayan facial features, duelling with skanky, cocaine pallid sisters of death riding on sand worms that seem to have bored its way through the set of “Dune” and facing off the armies of Set.
If the movie is beginning to sound like a melting pot with ingredients from all over, you are spot on. But, don’t strain yourself with inaccuracies in Egyptian lore; this is a fantasy movie, not an Egyptologist’s tome. Gods of Egypt is a fast-paced, action packed fantasy movie that is a cross between a Marvel summer blockbuster and “The Mummy”. It will delight with its slick visuals and the dizzying flights of imagination that will have you screaming for more instead of at the director’s creative liberties.
Catch “Gods of Egypt” at the theatres from 25 February 2016.
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