The Gloriousness Within Gods Of Egypt, Musings On Hate, And A Really Bad Joke

I almost made a huge mistake this weekend.  A really, really huge mistake.

Finding myself nestled snuggly into my middle-age years, I like to think I have garnered at least a tiny bit of wisdom.  I’ve bounced around the world, survived a divorce, did a few stupid things (and a lot of not-quite-stupid things), had jobs I hated (and loved), made some good friends (and maybe a couple of enemies), but through it all, I like to think I’ve at least taken away a few worthy life lessons.  I’m sure I have, but I came close to not learning one very important one recently.  What would that be, you wonder?  Well, that would be related to the above-mentioned mistake.  I’ll get to that shortly.  I’d like to say a couple of other things first.

I’m a movie-nut – always have been, always will be.  I am of what I like to call the “Star Wars Generation”.  I was at that perfect age to have witnessed George Lucas’ original blockbuster in the theatre at a time well before any inkling of cynicism had begun to creep into my psyche.  Sitting in that theatre with my feet well off the sticky floor, I was blown away by the simple story of a boy, a girl, and a galaxy wrapped up in images that caught me off guard and thrilled me beyond belief.  This was the apex of the movie-going experience.  Everything and everyone around me – far beyond those darkened cinema walls – was forgotten as I followed Luke, Han, Leia, and the rest of the gang across a galaxy far, far away.  It was glorious.

You don’t forget those moments, and as the realities of life, love, love lost, and a world that can be pretty shitty at times start to take hold, those moments become fewer and far between.  There were a lot of them in the eighties – moments involving a certain shark we all know and love (I was too young to see it in the 70s), a guy in a fedora, a little alien and his human side-kick, and another alien trapped in ice to name a few – but as the calendar flipped over into the 90s, they started to become a lot more scarce.  I’m not going to list off all of them, but there were two that came pretty close to capturing that same feeling of magical wonderment that lets you forget that there are awful people doing awful things to each other in the world, just up the aisle and two steps past the cinema marquee.

One was “The Crow” and the other was “Dark City”.  Ironic, I know, since both of them deal with bad people doing bad things, but they are fantasies, and damn good ones.

Director Alex Proyas managed to create two dark, wondrous worlds of imagination that still hold up strong to this day.  I will not soon forget the images of Brandon Lee traversing the nightmarish streets and rooftops of Detroit reimagined in his hunt for vengeance, or of Rufus Sewell trying to unravel the mystery of who and where he is in a landscape of ever-shifting structures and realities.  If I were to pick a favorite of the two, I would have to go with “Dark City”.  Damn, I love that movie to pieces.  It is a wonder to behold.

Now, before I tumble too far down the rabbit hole of nostalgia, I should get back to what I really want to address here, namely that mistake I was alluding to probably too far back at the beginning (damn nostalgia).  Just over a week ago, Alex Proyas’ latest “Gods of Egypt” was released on screens across America.  It took another week for it to reach me all the way over here in Korea.  Well before its first showing, the war drums were already resonating all across social media with accusations of white-washing and crappy CGI.  When the curtains finally drew back, the situation didn’t get much better.  Critics and hordes of keypad-pushers all across the Internet leapt on the movie like starving lions on a wounded antelope.  It seemed people couldn’t wait to tear it apart.  No aspect of the film was spared.  Besides the aforementioned white-washing and dodgy CGI (which I’ll refer to in a moment), just about anything left to criticize was, and vehemently so.

And the big mistake I almost made was that I came pretty damn close to buying into it.  After all, the hordes couldn’t be wrong, could they?  When you’re being bombarded from all sides by negativity, it’s hard to ignore the ugly beasts howling into your ears.  Well, in the end, I did manage to throw them aside and block out the howls, and I’m better off for it.

“Why?”

Because “Gods of Egypt” is one of the best damned times at the movies I’ve had in a good long while.

There, I’ve said it, and I will stand by it in the midst of anything anyone can throw at me in an attempt to convince me otherwise.  Don’t even try.  It won’t work.  Nope, nope.  Save your hate for Kanye West’s next asinine tweet.  It’s got no place anywhere near me.

How good do I think “Gods of Egypt” is?  Let me put it this way; if you were to randomly pluck ten minutes of film from anywhere in “Gods”, you would find more imagination in those ten minutes than in the entire running times of a good many films that have gotten tons more praise.  Oh, the sights, THE SIGHTS!  My feet might be firmly planted on the floor these days, but the scenes that played out before me on that screen yesterday took me back to a time that I find myself yearning for more and more with each passing year.  I saw royal litters borne aloft by flocks of birds, giant-beetle drawn chariots, a ship tethered to the sun sailing across the heavens above a flat Earth, a monstrous Sphinx riddling our heroes, beautiful assassins astride gigantic snakes, a grotesque worm the size of a city drinking up the Nile on its way to devouring the world, Gods clashing on land, in the air, and amongst the waves, and so, so much more.

Here it comes.  I can’t help it.  It’s a word I mentioned before and I usually only reserve it for films that are truly special.  And this one is.

It was GLORIOUS!

And it’s not just the images themselves.  Anyone can point a camera and shoot some pictures, but it takes a true talent to frame them in a way to elicit oohs and aahs.  Proyas is one of those talents.  He doesn’t just create beautiful pictures, he makes them move and dance in ways that thrill.  And they do thrill.  Immensely.

Again, Ra’s ship forging its way through the dark skies above the world, the sun burning at the end of its chain, and Ra himself waging fiery battle with a beast that can swallow an entire land in one gulp.  Wow….just wow!

“But the story sucks! “

Huh?  What the hell are you talking about?  Remember that little movie I described a while back, the one about a boy, a girl, and a galaxy?  That was a great story, right?  Well, it’s pretty much the same thing here.  “Gods of Egypt” is the story of a boy, a girl, a god, and an empire.  They all go on a quest to stop a big baddie with cool armor from ruling said empire.  It worked for me back in 1977 and it worked for me again here.  Jesus, what do you want?  Someone’s head in a box?  A ghost who doesn’t know he is a ghost?  A meek, little man creating a story off of a bulletin board and office supplies?

“Gods of Egypt” is the story of one man’s journey to save the love of his life, and of a vengeful God’s ultimate fight to save a world he turned his back on, who comes to realize that, in many ways, he is just as human as the mere mortals who are usually scurrying about his ankles.  All of this is wrapped up in a barrage of insane (and I mean that in the best of ways) imagery and action set pieces that blew my mind.  Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?  It is.

“Well, the CGI is crap!”

Man, this complaint is getting really old.  CGI is what it is, images generated on a computer and blended into scenes with live action players and sets.  The CGI in “Gods” is far from crap.  If you want crap CGI, tune in to one of those low budget creature features that are always popping up on the Syfy network.  Now, that’s….

Damn.  I cut myself off there for a reason.  I was starting to hate.  See how easy it is?  I should not be dumping on the work of skilled animators just because their output is of a lower quality than that seen in bigger budget affairs.  They work with limited budgets and do the best they can with what they’re given.  And I do enjoy some of those lower budget sci-fi and horror flicks.  They can be great fun.

But back to “Gods”.  The CGI is great.  Everyone involved should be proud of the work they did.  Is the CGI noticeable?  Yeah, it is.  That is unavoidable.  Whether it’s “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings” or “Planet of the Apes”, there will be times when we don’t notice it and times when we do.  Special effects technology is not yet at a level where it can fool us completely all of the time.  That doesn’t hinder my enjoyment in the least.  Give me a good story, with characters I care about, and I can forgive all involved if something looks a bit unreal or cartoony at times.  Did you hate the original “Star Wars” because you could see the matte lines around the tie-fighters and that one alien in the cantina looked like a guy in a cheap Halloween mask?  Of course not (well, maybe some of you did).

“They cast the Egyptian roles with white people!  That’s racist!”

Yeah, I guess it’s about that time for the white elephant to trundle its way into the room.  Since the days of Shakespeare – when young adolescent boys played all the female roles – and probably before, casting has been anything but an exact science.  Do I think Alex Proyas and the producers of “Gods” are all a bunch of racists who insist on only casting whities in their films?  To be honest, I don’t know anyone involved in the film.  I have no idea what beliefs – racial, political, religious, or whatever – they might have, but I honestly believe racism did not play a factor in the casting.  Hollywood is a business, and like any other business they need to make money to stay in business.  A large part of that is having big names above the title when they produce these huge budget extravaganzas.  Unfortunately – because I do support diversity – the talent pool that Tinseltown currently has to draw on is predominantly white.  

“Who’s to blame for that?”

Honestly, that is a debate I’m far from ready to wade into right now.  I do know that we currently live in a scary world where hate is the driving force behind way too much death and misery.  Living in a time where we see beheading videos go viral, youngsters getting gunned down in the streets, and some countries practicing genocide while others threaten to blast their enemies to Kingdom Come, I find it hard to believe people can get so worked up over a Scottish guy playing the Egyptian god Set, in a fantasy movie that takes place thousands of years ago on a flat Earth.  But that’s just me.  Hate me if you must.

“As long as we’re on the topic of actors, how were those pale-skinned folks they hired?”

Pretty darn good.  The standout was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  Somebody give this man a franchise.  His portrayal of the god Horus was fun, funny, sympathetic, and at times a mite dark.  He has a presence and charisma here that is as massive as the character he is playing, and I really got a kick out of his relationship with Brenton Thwaites as the love-struck thief Bek.  They’re quite the pair.  Speaking of Thwaites, don’t think he’s just another pretty face.  He brought an authentic mischievousness to the character that I can’t help seeing as just an extension of who he is in real life.  That’s how natural he makes it look.  That boy can do a lot with his brow alone.  And then we have the man, Gerard Butler.  What can I say?  The man has a machismo that knows no bounds, and he runs with it.  He is so much fun as the villainous god Set, I almost wish they had given him upswirls at the ends of his mustache so that he could give them a little twist every now and again.  Courtney Eaton does a fine job as Bek’s doomed love Zaya, and I must say she is an enchantress.  Lovely, lovely girl.  And she has no trouble holding her own, whether she’s playing with the big boys, or wandering the land of the dead all by her lonesome.  Rufus Sewell is deliciously smarmy as Set’s architect Urshu and plays a great “guy you love to hate”.  And last, but certainly not least, we have the great Geoffrey Rush as the sun god Ra.  I don’t know what to say.  I think I’ll just say I had as much fun watching him as he seemed to be having playing the role.

And was that Bryan Brown as Osiris?  Holy crap, I haven’t seen him in ages.  Well done!  Great to see you again.  F/X was the bomb.  And F/X 2 too.

“So, why all the hate?”

A lot of people like to hate.  Not everyone, but an alarming number to be sure.  Most of them are not bad people, but especially with the rise of social media, they just find themselves joining in with the angrier elements of our society.  I’ll compare it to school bullying.  Usually, there are just a couple of kids that are the real victimizers.  However, bullies are often pretty high up in the popularity ranks of their respective institutions.  When they bring the hammer down on their victims, the rest of the kids laugh or egg them on.  When the bully makes a snide remark, almost everyone around them will laugh and agree.  Again, those others are not really bad.  Hell, they may even pull the poor victim aside later and tell them that they didn’t really mean anything.  It’s just how it is.  They get caught up in the frenzy of it all and yearn to hang out with and gain the approval of their peers.  I guess you could also call it a kind of mob mentality.  Some people just can’t help themselves.

“Wow, that’s a bit of a downer.”

Yeah, it is.

“You should tell a joke to lighten things back again.”

Okay.  Why did Anakin Skywalker cross the road?

“I dunno.  Why?”

To get to the dark side.

“That’s awful, but it did the trick.  Now wrap it up.  This is getting too long.”

Yeah it is.  Well, folks, I think I’ve said my piece.  I loved “Gods of Egypt” and I really think it’s getting an unfair bashing.  Do I think everyone who dislikes this movie is crazy?  Not at all.  There are plenty of movies I dislike or downright hate, but I saw those movies and formed my own opinion.  And I stick to those opinions no matter what anyone says or thinks.  I will not join in with a concerted effort to torpedo a movie, especially when many of the voices dissing the movie haven’t even seen it and are unwilling to give it a chance.  And I’m willing to bet money that at least a few critics are giving it less than favorable reviews just because they are afraid their peers may not approve.  The landscape of the Interwebs, like the schoolyards, can be a cruel place sometimes.

In the end, I avoided making that big mistake, and I’m happier for it.  “Gods of Egypt” was a fun old time at the flicker-pictures that wowed me with its fantastic visuals and creative direction, got me invested in a story with characters I wanted to hang out with for longer than the two hours I had, and, most importantly, transported me back to a time where I didn’t have to worry about my shoes sticking to the floor, or what lay beyond those couple of steps past the marquee.

Is it a perfect movie?  No, it isn’t.  What movie is?  

But is it fun? Absolutely. It is god damn glorious.

Editor’s note: David McGrath is a frequent contributor for The Hollywood Outsider, and the opinions shared here are strictly his own.