Review of The Egyptian (1954) by Anssi V — 05 Mar 2013

The conundrum with this film is that I cannot really say anything against it, but at the same time I cannot really praise anything in it either. Not often do I see a film that fits the description of average this well. Or perhaps I have misspoken. There are things in this film that I think have been done well, and there are things that I think could have been done better. But none of the film's flaws are that meaningful, but neither are its strengths.

That being said, do I think that the film is worth watching? Well, yes. There are better film, there are even better films about Ancient Egypt, but it's still rare to see a film such as this that seems to capture the feel of that particular era so well. The stage settings and the costumes of course have that mid-century Hollywood feel to them, but the time of the pharaohs has still been replicated beautifully in this film. I also liked the plot, which deals with many differing subjects such as poverty, class systems, the meaning of religion, war versus peace, yet manages to tell an interesting, if a bit rambling story and not drown us in characters.

On the other hand the actual characters we get aren't anything special. They're not bad, and their actors aren't either, but I still couldn't form any meaningful connection with them. Some were better than the others, such as Nefer (Bella Darvi), a seductive rich woman, or Kaptah (Peter Ustinov), the servant of the main character, while some were worse, but as a whole I've seen these archetypes done way better.

And that's this movie. Nothing special, but still worth watching if you have the time and you like the genre.