Director: Alex Proyas.
Starring: Brenton Thwaites, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gerald Bulter, Chadwick Boseman, Courtney Eaton, Geoffrey Rush, Elodie Yung, Bryan Brown.
Alex Proyas first feature since Knowing seven years ago, which is a long time for most directors, especially having a relative small catalogue since his first main feature of The Crow back in '94. We see him tackle the conflicting Egyptian mythology of warring God/Kings Set and Horus, whilst mortals suffer the consequences.
Game of Thrones' Jaime Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays Horus, the 'good' God or the better choice out of the two, who has his new crown and eyes stripped from him by his oppressing Uncle, Set, played by Gerald Butler. Tyranny befalls upon the Egyptian people whilst under new management with Set literally Hellbent on taking over everything, including the underworld, killing all those who stand against him, including his God siblings, acquiring their abilities along the way.
Fate would have it, a young, cunning thief by the name of Bek, who doesn't have faith in the Gods unlike his beautiful love Zaya, embarks on freeing her from slavery, which isn't exactly the slavery you might expect, but she's practical a clerk for the Master Builder of the new Egypt. The Giver and Maleficent star Brenton Thwaites plays Bek who reminds me of a live action Aladdin. Sarcastic, slightly arrogant but charming and sly with it.
Things go from bad to worse, and slightly complicated leading to Bek inadvertently restore balance to the world and it's all because of a girl. It's always about the girl, right? By seeking the help of the blind God they make a deal and form an unlikely partnership to both get what they want ensuring adventures. So much happens, with plot twists, it is refreshingly unpredictable with a dot to dot storyline. I didn't find it boring however it does feel a lot longer than 126 minutes and towards the end you feel like it's be going for hours.
It's CGI heavy with some very imaginative imagery going on. Ra, Geoffrey Rush's stellar sail barge for example and Black Panther's Chadwick Boseman, Thoth are quite impressive to look at however spectacularly so, it loses credibility. Ra's looks like he's constantly night fishing and the dead King from Lord Of The Rings seems to make an appearance, played by Mad Max's Bruce Spence. In fact, there's quite a few heads from Mad Max. Zaya's Countney Eaton being one of Immortal Joe's Virgins.
It actually loses its Egyptian flavour along the way and starts to feel more like a fighting fantasy film, even with Marco Beltrami's Aladdin strong score. Quite like the recent Clash of Titans movies only more colourful and shiny. Some of the sets remind me of earlier Star Trek stages, the fight scenes are quite good and there's plenty of bosom to look at but majority of the cast speaking with some form of British accent is actually quite off putting.
It has quite a cast and on top of who I have already mentioned, TV Dare Devil's Elodie Yung plays Hathor, goddess of love, superbly well and will definitely keeping an eye out for her (pun intended) regular bad guy Rufus Sewell (A Knight's Tale) plays the Master Builder and Bryan Brown (Cocktail, F/X) briefly plays Osiris.
It's actually brainless entertainment with a cliched but witty script. Going in with low expectations actually resulted in me enjoying this more than expected. It's not amazing, nor ground breaking in any way but entertaining nonetheless and I'm sure kids will enjoy this more so. Coster/ Waldau and Butler play their parts well enough and having watched this, I reckon Nikolaj would make a great Solid Snake.
Running Time: 6
The Cast: 7
Performance: 7
Direction: 7
Story: 6
Script: 6
Creativity: 8
Soundtrack: 7
Job Description: 6
The Extra Bonus Point: 0
60% 6/10
