Review of Gods of Egypt (2016) by Dottheeyes — 27 Feb 2016

Gods of Egypt is so decadent, so imbecilic, so not of its time, so -strange- as to become a type of glorious folly. On the day of Horus' (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) coronation, his malevolent uncle Set (Gerard Butler) murders reigning king Osiris (Bryan Brown), steals the crown, and rips Horus' eyes from his head before exiling him.

Set's tyrannical rule is later challenged by a jaded, reluctant Horus and a mortal thief (Brenton Thwaites) who retrieves one of the fallen god's baby blues. The thief's aim is to save his recently murdered girlfriend (astonishing beauty and Fury Road wife Courtney Eaton) from the afterlife.

It is a shame director Alex Proyas' career is not in a healthier place two decades after the extremely promising one-two of The Crow and Dark City, but he remains a bold stylist. Every frame of this two-hour-plus film is a punishing and sumptuous blast to the face.

The gold-hued, overwrought imagery—75 percent sword-and-sandal fantasy, 20 percent science fiction, 5 percent acid trip—includes a bejeweled Ra (Geoffrey Rush) battling a writhing rectal demon in space, she-assassins atop serpentine steeds, and decidedly Danish and Scottish Egyptian deities transforming into glowing ten-foot iron men.

Even tiny details are hideous and wonderful: consider Osiris' inexplicable soul patch. The cumulative experience is numbing and beyond over-the-top, but there are several moments of true beauty and aesthetic fascination, for better or worse.

And the dialogue is execrable, particularly the modern quips, and a certain secondhand shame is felt for the mostly talented and very attractive cast. A disaster? Maybe. But a jolly, absurdly embellished one.