'Gods of Egypt' Review

Last week when I saw 'The Boss', I thought I was certain to not see a movie just as bad or even worse. But along came 'Gods of Egypt' to do it best to give it a run for its money and to try and claim the title for itself.

Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waladau) is set to become the new ruler of Egypt as his father Osiris (Bryan Brown) steps down. Osiris' brother, Set (Gerard Butler) who was cast out to rule the desert comes back in what seems to be to see the coronation but kills Osiris and blinds Horus to take the throne for himself. A mere mortal Bek (Brenton Thwaites) loses his lover Zaya (Courtney Eaton) when trying to escape slavery from Set and looks to help Horus in return for him bringing back Zaya. 

'Gods of Egypt' takes us to Egypt where absolutely no one looks or sounds Egyptian, at least none of the main characters do. The cast consists of Australians, Europeans and Americans with not many even liking slightly Egyptian at all and it does cause quite a problem. This automatically takes you out of the film as all these characters don't fit the setting at all. On top of that, most of them speaking in what are more British accents than anything other than Gerard Butler who goes all out in his Scottish voice. The film has came under fire a lot for it's terrible casting and it does affect the film a lot. How do they expect us to believe these characters and settings if they haven't even bothered to get even one actor from Egypt or Egyptian descent to appear in it? 

One of the biggest problems with the film is just how bad the writing is within this film. The story for one, is not interesting. The characters also are not interesting and thy don't get you even remotely emotionally invested in any of them. The combination of they two alone is a crime for a movie because if you fail on that, what else do you really have to stand on? Oh yeah, it's the CGI that they want you to only care about. To make things even worse the dialogue is insufferable. I have no idea to why they tried to make this huge film and have everyone try to be funny. It doesn't work at all and it is so cringey seeing these awful characters come out with one liners. The character Bek becomes the worst in the film for this as he cannot help but make some sort of remark regardless of what is happening, even if he is staring in the face of death. The other part of that character's dialogue is him constantly asking questions and is one of the worst written characters of the year.

As previously mentioned, the film is a complete CGI fest. There are literally no scenes that are organic or believable at all. The CGI at times is fairly impressive as it creates some huge settings that do like quite nice. However there are so many things that look awful especially for a feature length film that had a budget of $140 million. They obviously were trying to create something epic but it is just shockingly bad with the gods being twice the size as normal humans, yet have the same features. The fight scenes become unbearable as the gods turn into bulls or eagle like creatures that are eyesores. Unfortunately for the film, none of the creatures look good at all. None of them make you go wow or even impress slightly. The worst of all comes in the form of the sphinx that will let you past if you can solve a riddle. Great stuff. 

There are so many things that happen in the film that are just convenient. Again we go back to the character Bek, who gets away with everyone at the very last second. No matter what happens, he's always safe for no other reason. There is a scene where Bek and Horus are being pursued by two large -and awful looking- fire breathing snakes n which the pair go into one of the gaps in the ground. Whilst sitting in this square in the ground the snake approaches them and starts to breathe it's fire towards them. Only a few seconds ago, the huge creature was sending flames for thousands of metres. However when it came to actually causing destruction, it could only power out enough for 3/4s of the small area and conveniently, that's where our 'heroes' were. Along with constantly being oh so lucky, the characters get a whole lot of help from characters who also possess magic skills. They only do so when danger is near and to allow the story to progress. You then start to question why all these "powerful" gods didn't just team up to take down Set, rather than letting him run amok with a reign of terror. 

The run time of this movie is 2 hours and 8 minutes. Now with no good story, no good writing, no good characters, how on earth do they expect you to be entertained for more than 2 hours? This film undoubtedly should have been a lot shorter as it didn't have nearly enough quality to last that long. In saying that though, the film doesn't have enough quality for one hour.

Final Verdict =

An utter shambles of a movie, 'Gods of Egypt' is up there with the worst of the year. 

So have you seen 'Gods of Egypt'- and for your sake I hope you haven't- what did you think of it? If you do choose to see it albeit I highly recommend you don't, I hope you enjoy it more than I did. Once again, thank you for reading my review, it is much appreciated!

By Angus McGregor

London Has Fallen Review

Gerard Butler is back saving the President of the United States once again in the new action film, 'London Has Fallen'. This is the sequel to the 2013 film 'Olympus Has Fallen' which was a fun action movie. But would 'London Has Fallen' follow up on that or would it be a colossal failure?

'London Has Fallen' stars Gerard Butler as Mike Banning and Aaron Eckhart as the President of the United States Benjamin Asher. Due to the UK Prime Ministers death, major leaders from around the world head to London for the funeral and to pay their respects. The event turns south and terrorists take control of the city with the aim of taking the world leaders out and then finally to publicly broadcast the execution of the President. It is now up to Mike Banning to save the life of the President before it is too late.

If you go into this film just expecting a fun action movie then you will definitely enjoy it. Don't go in expecting anything more, that really isn't the purpose of this film. 'London Has Fallen' would really fit in the 80's alongside other entertaining action movies that aren't went to be anything more. Don't expect great dramatic performances from this one.

Gerard Butler is back again as Mike Banning and as an action hero, he is pretty good. Obviously he looks the part as he looks as if he could take out many enemies. He is also very good at delivering the witty lines which is pretty essential in these types of movies. Sure some of them are pretty cheesy but most times they do work pretty well and produce some laughs. Butler does everything that an action hero should do.

Gerard Butler back as Mike Banning

Aaron Eckhart is also back as the President of the United States. I would probably say that he was more enjoyable to watch this time around. In the first film, he is held captive for most of the film but due to being in a different environment he has to be a part of the action first hand. Seeing him being involved in the fight against the terrorists was pretty enjoyable and something new that we didn't really get in Olympus.

Quite a lot of the time with sequels you just get the exact same movie but in a different location. 'London Has Fallen' so easily could've fell into this. There are some similarities in the film but for the most part there are differences. It is good that they didn't just have the president being held hostage for the entirety of the film as it would of been the exact same as Olympus.

There isn't that great logic in this film being perfectly honest. For some reason the only world leader with the suitable protection is the president. The German leader is standing out in the open with her protection behind her, what good is that? The French Prime Minister travelled via some sort of see through speedboat with no security with him. You can't really be surprised that something happened to him. Why was the only one with the adequate protection the American? Makes no sense.

There is a clear patriotism for America in this as well. I'm not surprised at all that al the world leaders were taken out so easily in this film except from America's. The story clearly shows the story that Americans will really eat up. It shows America defying all odds when faced with the toughest of challenges that only America would be able to do. I guess they didn't put Russia in this scenario in case of upsetting them. 'London Has Fallen' shows that no matter what, America will fight on and prevail over any challenge.

The villain in this film really isn't that great. Again he had the potential to be very good as you could see why he would want revenge on the western world. . He himself isn't in London or involved in any of the actual events in the terrorist attacks. He leaves everything down to henchmen whilst he sits at home and only interacts with characters via satellite and on the phone. He may of conducted it but he wasn't doing anything himself for the whole film. He also wants the president to be murdered live on TV. Why not any of the other leaders? Why did it matter if it were on TV? It would still carry a rippling effect especially with all the death and destruction caused. It was definitely just a mechanism to buy time for Banning to try rescue the president.

The CGI in this film at most points is terrible. In Olympus, most of the CGI was smaller scale so there wasn't a huge need for the effects. However in London the CGI is used on a much larger scale. Bridges are destroyed as well as destruction to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. This had the potential to look fantastic. However the effects were not up to standard and most looked very poor. There were better effects in the 90's than in this film. It did lead to quite a lot of it looking very unrealistic and pretty silly.

Destruction to London

The ending of the film is also pretty questionable. They don't seem to learn their lesson and just carry out the same ruthlessness that got them into bother in the first place. Why just do the exact same thing causing more destruction and probably making yourself even less popular with that side of the world.

Final Verdict: Olympus Has Fallen = C

For what it is, you will get entertainment from 'London Has Fallen'. Don't go in expecting a masterpiece as you won't get it. Go in for a good time and enjoy the film. I wouldn't recommend you rushing to go out and see this in cinema. Most definitely recommend you picking it up on DVD and getting friends around to have a good time with.

Now that I have finished the review there is something that I want to talk about with this film. There may be some SPOILERS in this part so you have been warned. It resembles another film very closely which I found quite odd. No it isn't Olympus. The film that I saw so many similarities in this film with was actually 'Cloverfield'. This movie was fresh in my head as I had watched it the night before. But oh my god there are actually quite a few similarities. For example, one of the first attacks in 'Cloverfield' involves taking out the Brooklyn Bridge. A bridge in London Has Fallen is also destroyed carrying much devastation. There is also a very similar helicopter crash that features in both films. Even more closely is there being a few survivors. Also an impalement to a main character is present in both of these films. Another thing that stuck in my head that was so similar was when Banning and President Asher were travelling through the underground whilst the conflict was going on and eventually where they encountered more terrorists. Oddly familiar to what goes on in 'Cloverfield'. There is also a scene where there is war on a street between the two sides. The camera work in this scene makes you feel a part of what's going on as if you are actually there. Possibly the most similar thing between the two films when compared with the found footage scene in 'Cloverfield' when they attack the beast. Pretty much it seems like if you took out terrorists for monsters, you would nearly have the same film. This is just something that I was thinking about and wanted to share with you. If you have seen both films, what do you think of the similarities?

If you have seen 'London Has Fallen' what did you think of it? Once again thank you so much for reading my review, it is much appreciated. 

By Angus McGregor