Righteous! Fire-breathing! Badass! But can’t kill one puny human.

Who knew Ancient Egypt had so many special effects?

Plot Flaw Alert Which No One Seems To Notice: In the visual gluttony called GODS OF EGYPT, evil god Set defeats virtuous god Horus by plucking out the source of Horus’s power – his eyes. Now Horus must go on a quest to retrieve his eyes, so that he can regain the power to defeat Set.

But wait, you dummies!—

If Set defeated Horus even when Horus had his eyes, then what good will it do Horus to get his eyes back? He was defeated even with the source of all his power intact – so… uh, what now, geniuses?

Thus this whole shaboo-shabah, this journey across netherworlds and cosmic oceans, this slogging through swamps and deserts, this battle against mega-sphinxes and ultra-cobras, all becomes extremely pointless. And very very very silly.

Danish-born Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is Horus, cutting an imposing figure that easily might have been a role for Aaron Eckhart or Thomas Jane (and we sometimes equate him with one of those more famous actors during the action sequences).

Manly Gerard Butler is Set, all square-jawed Welsh-Egyptian-British accent and thrumming deltoids, killing lesser gods and gaining their powers through – osmosis? ectoplasmic transfusion? zika virus? All we know is: with those powers, he even defeats his all-powerful father, the god of creation, Ra (Geoffrey Rush), who drives his magic sky bus by apparently turning actual physical levers. Then he has to have a rest on his steps in the evening from all the exertion. You lost me at magic underwear.

Brenton Thwaites is Bek, a human who helps Horus regain his eyes, so that Horus will in return help Bek rescue his lady love (Courtney Eaton) from the jaws of Anubis, the god of deathly judgment. Exotic Elodie Yung is Hathor, the goddess of love, who serves time with Set while he’s a winner and then abandons him when the tables turn. Why are so many leading ladies portrayed in this haphazard time-serving manner? Verbose Chadwick Boseman is the god scholar Thoth, the only god who looks African in this movie set in Africa.

“You faithless human! So you think I only exist because Aaron Eckhart’s agent asked for too much money?”

Writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, and visionary director Alex Proyas try to imbue GODS OF EGYPT with a new slant: that of the ancient gods actually existing alongside men, ruling over Egypt like any imperial class. The 8-foot tall gods physically tower over their human subjects (who are screen-captured here in the same manner as the Hobbits in LORD OF THE RINGS – as smaller people alongside giants). The wars and skirmishes are basically between the gods over the manner of ruling the humans. It’s a workable concept, and ye gods I love the ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythologies (despite some of the contradictions and arbitrary magic), but the filmmakers get caught up in gratuitous overkill when it comes to their efx sandbox.

The gods arbitrarily turn from human form to CGI versions of themselves; in their full CG eye-strain, they resemble their hieroglyphs, therefore Horus is a silver falcon with steel-belted wings and Anubis is a jackal-headed humanoid, etc. Set is many-gods-in-one, so he can turn into any old party favor he wants, just like it says in the Bible. One wonders why they even bother battling in their human forms if their god versions are so much more powerful and sexy. The backgrounds are ALL fake-looking, with many scenes nothing but computer graphic imagery, including all the foreground and characters. Some of the full-CGI characters like the minotaurs look jerky, with mismatched voices; there are giant snakes that blow fire, a Sphinx whose booming voice we cannot understand, and a soundtrack that oddly keeps reminding us of the main theme of Stranger In Paradise.

Here’s something else that doesn’t make sense in a world where gods and magic exist: Set usurps the throne of benevolent god king Osiris (Bryan Brown, complete with Australian-Egyptian accent), in order to enslave Egypt’s humans… to force them to build a tower for him; a tower he could just as easily have built, uh, with his magic and his own gigantic minotaur-minions. Ancient kings (and ancient Americans) enslaved people to perform tasks that were too cost-prohibitive with an employed labor force. But Set doesn’t need money. He’s magic. So why does he need slaves? If he wants to “rule over Egypt,” just kill Osiris, change the name-plates on the Ionic columns and rule over a land fertile and productive with an obviously flourishing economy. Why turn it into ochre filth and things burning on the horizon? Is this any way to run a big-dick-ocracy?

In the end, Horus discovers his “humanity” and realizes he doesn’t need his other eye to be more powerful than Set (because the focus groups say he looks more ruggedly sexy with that eye-patch), proving that gods can learn life lessons too, which means everything that just happened in the movie is even more unnecessary and pointless than it already was.

Ironically, GODS OF EGYPT will appeal to those who will never have the propensity to educate themselves on the mythical gods of ancient Egypt.

END

We’ll Always Have Banlieue.

Paris is burning. And only Parkour can save it.

DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM is the high octane sequel to the atomic blast of DISTRICT 13 (2004). Like its predecessor, a guilty pleasure, full of the same running and jumping and skipping and flower arranging.

At the conclusion of DISTRICT 13, undercover cop Damien (Cyril Raffaelli) united with ex-crim Leito (David Belle), and Leito reunited with his hostage sister; Damien and Leito made peace with the crime lord’s thugs, the corrupt government was brought down on national TV and the new government promised to tear down the walls separating the crime-ridden Districts from the city of Paris. And they all lived happily ever aft– [needle scratch]

Thank God everything went to shit or we’d never have a sequel…

In this bromantic-fisted actioner, Damien and Leito reunite to take down the secret government police who are trying to demolish District 13 for a fat payday.

Patrick Alessandrin directs, retaining the surefooted verve of Pierre Morel (DISTRICT 13), and Luc Besson once again pens the convoluted plot: the head of the secret police, Gassman (Daniel Duval) brews dissension in District 13 by setting up the deaths of two cops, to force the president’s hand (Philippe Torreton) to wipe out the District and rebuild a modern city. Gassman is being paid off by the rebuilding contractor. (Hilariously, the contractor company is called – get this – Harriburton! Now if this was China, that would be a snide pronunciation gag and a wink to Cheney’s unethical no-bid contractors Halliburton, but since it’s France, I don’t really know whether it’s homage, satire or just one of those buttery French names badly translated.)

Therefore, the man empowered to investigate the conspiracy – Gassman – is the man responsible for it, and also the man who stands to make a fortune by hiring his own contractors. Hang on, are we talking about Dick Cheney again?…

It is three years since the events in DISTRICT 13, and ULTIMATUM opens with sweeping shots of the District’s decay: gangs, guns, drugs, dog-fighting, and lots and lots of hardguys with tattoos.

We meet Leito taking it upon himself to demolish the wall, section by section. His gang leader friend regards the wall as a fortress protecting them from the outside world. Which in France means it’s protecting them from beepy fuel-efficient cars, leggy French models and buttery croissants. “Better to be king here than a butthole over there.”

We meet Damien undercover as a hooker with a great arse. Undercover like a slut, seducing a slew of dope buyers and capturing them and their dealer Mr. Woo (homage to John?). At one point, he fights while holding a €200 million Van Gogh “one scratch and its worthless,” so the battle becomes very, very funny a la Jackie Chan, as he manipulates the painting around the fight (or the fight around the painting). Throughout movie, this tone of battle underscored by humor keeps it enjoyably light.

Once again lots of hand-to-hand creative combat – because somehow people keep forgetting they have guns. Or suffer from the Boba Fett Syndrome (i.e. have a gun, but move to within striking distance to use it, whereupon gets bitchbeaten). The absolute stupidest fight (for which I eventually threw up my hands and fell out of the movie) was when the Cambodian bitch kills four army guys who are completely outfitted butt to bonehead in camo and utility belts; and in all those little compartments on their wanky body-armor they couldn’t find one weapon they could use from a distance instead of engaging her in hand-to-hand? And after she kills the first three with that blade in her hair, you’d think the fourth ineffectual military gimp would learn a lesson, but no – walk straight into that swinging blade like a blithering sheep.

Gassman’s right-hand hardguy Roland (Pierre-Marie Mosconi) tries to kill Damien throughout the movie by not killing him. Too much Bond-movie influence? First, he arrests Damien and locks him in jail; when Damien escapes, Roland’s men try to shoot him from far away but as soon as they get up close – hand-to-hand for glory; then when Roland has a gun on Damien, his most efficient method of killing Damien is to apparently get kicked in the nuts by him.

Gassman is after the video that exposes the conspiracy, so the rebels pass it to Leito to Run Away with it! Cue Parkour. Run away! Run away! The free-running is not as prominent as it was in DISTRICT 13; more of a diffuse mind-set, woven into the fabric of the action. Of course, you can’t be a true hero if you’re just good at Running Away. So Leito is given some dynamic combat scenes, kicking ass and taking buttery French names.

An audacious plotline as the District’s five gangs are recruited by cop Damien to storm downtown Paris and stop the government cops blasting the District to hell. But here’s the strange twist: What the government is doing is, in one sense, ridding Paris of its worst crime, albeit by extreme means. Despite Gassman profiteering from the erection of modern skyscrapers, the plan itself will create jobs, renew the city and bring in revenue! The fact that Gassman started the process by murdering police is irrelevant. His intent is purely business. The president argues that France’s democracy is based on Liberty, Equality, Fraternity – that those ideals would be quashed by demolishing District 13. But the gangs who just overran his presidential office displayed their own liberty, equality and fraternity…

Thus, what the president actually does with the rockets aimed at the District – at the behest of the crime lords and Leito and Damien – is a surprisingly ironic resolution.

When the gangs take over the cities, pray they’re as honest as the crime lords from DISTRICT 13.

END