GODS OF EGYPT Review

Gods of Egypt is one of those movies that is so bad that even the inherent campiness of it can't make things the slightest bit fun. At the very least, given the extravagance of the visuals and the outlandish reaches director Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Dark City) goes for here I expected the film to be a good ole' slice of pure entertainment value for the sake of nothing else, but even under these minimal expectations Gods of Egypt fails to be anything but conventional; which is saying a lot for a film that has gigantic flying beetles and Egyptian God transformers dismantling one another. There is seemingly no point to the construction of this universe as far as financial reward goes and the idea of whitewashing these ancient mythological idols is the least of the films problems. Sure, we have Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Geoffrey Rush all doing variations on their European accents, but none are as distracting as the fully CGI backdrops that look as if they were "completed" in a rush two days before the film's release. Beyond all of the obvious complaints there are to make about this movie though, there was certainly some ambition behind the attempt as well. Unfortunately, these strides end up counting for very little. Still, there are risks taken in the way the Gods are portrayed as being larger and more looming than the mortals who worship them, there is an effort to take the historical context of the film and blend in elements of weird science fiction and fantasy, and the actual world building of this strange universe can be immersive, but more times than not these attempts fail to be what they should be and that is to be cool and appealing. Instead, the ugliness of the shiny yet granular images and the fight scenes that look as if they were ripped from a video game circa 2001 reek of a director out of touch and a storyteller too far removed from these adjectives that everything going on here feels as if it's trying too hard to please too broad an audience. Proyas has always been one to try something outside the box or at least be up for going after the unexpected, but with Gods of Egypt there is no amount of CGI that could cover up the scars it leaves.

Full Trailer for GODS OF EGYPT

While I was never excited for Alex Proyas' big popcorn flick that would take Geroge Lucas' approach to the Star Wars prequels and extend them to ancient Egypt, I didn't think it would look as bad as this trailer indicates. I've always enjoyed Proyas' films, no matter how goofy they've seemed to get over the years. Granted, I was too young to really appreciate either The Crow or Dark City on my first, but culturally late viewings and was more a fan of Will Smith than anything else which gave I. Robot a pass (I need to re-visit that flick). It was in 2009 with Knowing that I could see the potential for what Proyas was going for, but the casting of Nicolas Cage in the lead role seemed to stunt it's potential and need to be taken seriously. Almost seven years after the release of that film though, Proyas has returned to the big screen with an epic Hollywood production that will certainly encounter (if it's not already) many of the same issues that faced Ridley Scott's Exodus film in that he's cast mostly white actors in a film set in Africa. Whatever that might bring, the biggest fight the film will have to face is that of being an original blockbuster with no brand recognition or previous films to lend it any hype. The star power is minimal (unless you were really aching to see some form of Gerard Butler's Leonidas again), but the visuals seem to be the main selling point. I can't pretend I was impressed by the trailer as it looks like more of a video game than that Warcraft trailer, but also like that film the director intrigues me and so I'll stay tuned in to see how things turn out. Gods of Egypt stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Chadwick Boseman, Gerard Butler, Elodie Yung, Brenton Thwaites, Courtney Eaton, Abbey Lee, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush and opens on February 26, 2016.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Review

I went into Mad Max: Fury Road knowing little to nothing about director George Miller's franchise. I attempted to watch his original 1979 film a couple of weeks prior, but found myself bored and unable to pay attention and so as much as that statement might be read as sacrilege in the film community, I gave up and decided not to move on. This didn't lessen my excitement for Miller's latest installment as I'm a fan of both Tom Hardy and the incredible trailers that were crafted for the film. My only hope was that the final product lived up to what we caught glimpses of in the trailers. And so, while I have no real frame of reference (and I know I need to go back and at least watch Road Warrior as I've read the words "action classic" tossed at it at least a dozen times over the past week) I went into Fury Road with optimism and excitement, hoping that what was promised would be delivered and it was. The fact Miller, who is now seventy, was even able to pull off half of the stuff we see on screen here is amazing, but that he is able to subtly sneak in a compelling story underneath the mayhem is all the more reason to be fascinated by the highly saturated images we watch frenetically move across the screen. The big screen. It almost goes without saying that the film is gorgeous and the action is superb, but as the opening moments play out it is clear one doesn't necessarily have to be familiar with the previous adventures of Max Rockatansky (Hardy). A brief overview by the titular character is given in the opening moments as he stands on the edge of a sand-drenched cliff, getting set for his "next adventure" as I'd like to see it. Into the frame creeps a two-headed lizard, quickly slithering its way closer to Max where he stomps on it with his boot heel and picks it up to gather protein. We know immediately this is not our world, not the one we know. We can see, even if we haven't before, that this is a land full of inhabitants who are full of desperation and that bubble of desperation is about to burst. For the full two-hour runtime of the film Fury Road barely has time to slow down and catch its breath and even less does it rely on dialogue to move the story along. Miller firmly believes that actions speak louder than words and he puts that mantra on full display here as Mad Max: Fury Road is completely bonkers in every way; every good, entertaining way it can be.