A film very loosely based on Egyptian mythos with an all white cast? What could go wrong? Just about everything. The casting, the effects, the characters, the story, and the feel of the film were all wrong. So we have Gerard Butler as Set, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) as Horus, Brenton Thwaites as our mortal hero, and Geoffrey Rush as Ra. Pretty much an all white and tanned cast to play Egyptians (who in case you don’t know aren’t the whitest group of people on Earth). I hate to use this, but Chadwick Boseman plays the “Magical BlacK” character. He shows up to solve the riddle of the Sphinx (A GREEK MYTHOS!) and he gets it wrong two or three times. Worthless. The actors have three ranges.
1: Takes it so dramatically serious you’d think it’s Macbeth.
2: Just kind of reading their lines, taking the paycheck and going home.
3: Just toss any direction away and chew the nonexistent scenery like it was bubble gum.
Nearly all the gods go under 1. Most of the mortals we see go into 2. But the villains…OH MAN! Gerard Butler and Rufus Sewell as the Masterbuilder are glorious. Hamming it up in just about every scene, feasting on the CG backdrops, and saying every line like they have to give a presentation for a class they don’t even like. They got the most laughs out of me because of how little they took this seriously. Which is good because this movie is dumb. It makes up mythos left and right, takes stuff from other beliefs, and just makes jokes over the gods. They all have transformers/power ranger’s esque morphing sequences where they become their animal representation. Except Ra. Oh god Ra. So bear with me. So Ra flies in the sky in a space ship version of Jabba’s sail barge, his ‘god’ form is just twice his size and on fire, and he spends all eternity shooting fire at a black space worm that wants to eat Egypt…STOP LAUGHING THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENS! Also nitpick, but Ra is not Horus’ grandfather in the mythology. He was Horus’ great-great grandfather. The film is either an action scene (terrible ones), terrible comedy lines (the funniest parts are when they’re supposed to be serious), and boring talky scenes. Almost every scene in a green screen. Almost every effect is a CG effect. Large city, vast jungle (IN EGYPT!), castle bedroom, library, temple, open room, and desert. Almost every set is CG. Its astounding that people complain about the use of CG in the Star Wars Prequels, but at least they built sets and shot on location (sometimes). This was such a bad movie, but I recommend it only if you want a laugh.
Final Verdict: 3/10 CG Sets.