Gods of Egypt (2016)

Gods of Egypt (2016)

Director: Alex Proyas

Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Courtney Eaton, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Young, Gerard Butler, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush

Every once in a while a movie tanks at the box office, when it shouldn’t have. I mean surely, most of the films that get the shaft by audiences usually deserve it, but in the case of Alex Proyas big budget fantasy extravaganza Gods of Egypt, it didn’t. I kick myself in the ass for listening to that first batch of negative reviews that accused the film among many things of “white washing” the cast, which means that a group of people got angry because characters that were Egyptian (and therefore should look Egyptian) where being played by white actors. I don’t really care about that sort of thing; I’m just enjoying a movie here. Weren’t we past the whole skin color thing? Guess not. Anyways, reviewers decided to spew their hatred at this one and well, no one went to see it. This is the kind of film that was badmouthed even before it was released. And so, it only made back 31 million dollars on a 140 million dollar budget, which means it was a gargantuan flop. It’s sad because a box office flop of this magnitude cold  spell the end of Alex Proyas career, which means no more big budget films for him. The worst part is that this movie, in my opinion, is an excellent action adventure fantasy extravaganza that deserved to be embraced by audiences.

The story is multi faceted, on the one hand it’s about Horus, the God of Wind, trying to recover his god hood and his kingdom. On the other hand, it’s a story about a young man named Bek, trying to recover the love of his life from the icy grips of death. You see Set, the God of Chaos has taken over the land and rules it with an iron fist. Since this is a full on fantasy film, Set can do things like changing the rules of what happens after you die. Where in the past all you had to do was be a good citizen and work to go to heaven, now in order to earn your way into the afterlife you have to pay! If you don’t have something of value you are sent to hell, but if you got the goods you go to heaven with the Gods. This of course spells certain doom for poor people who have nothing to give to the Gods. Will order be set again? Can Horus learn to fight for the rights of the people? Will the Gods learn to care about humans? Or will they remain self centered and egotistical?

This film was awesome for many reasons, number one, it has a good story. It grabs you from the get go because it pits the despotic ruler vs. the unpredictable rebel trying to fight for his rightful place in the world. Unfortunately, Set the despotic ruler cares nothing for “the little people”; he only cares about power and riches. So it’s that classic class struggle story, the powerful vs. the working class. They had this awesome visual idea for this movie where ‘The Gods’ look slightly bigger than the humans, so it’s like they aren’t gigantic, but they are a few inches bigger than the regular humans, which made for a cool visual. I’m sure it must’ve been hell to film though, this visual effect makes practically every scene in the movie a special effect! And speaking of effects, they are top notch on this show! It's a visual feast, more so for lovers of fantasy and escapism.

Gods of Egypt is one of those movies in which most of the surroundings are computer generated. In this sense Gods of Egypt is like the Star Wars movies, which is normally something that I frown upon. I’ve always resisted “all CGI” movies, where only the actors are real. Sadly, this is the face of the new Fantasy/Science Fiction film. They’ve evolved into this; we might as well accept it. Stop motion, matte paintings and the use of miniatures have all been replaced by computer generated images, which is fine. It’s just another form of art, thought if I had to choose, I’d choose practical old school effects. Call me old fashion but they had more artistry to them if you ask me. I have to admit that this “all CGI” element of this film was the main reason why I didn’t go see it in theaters. Yet I have to admit that like all types of special effects, when done right, they can (and should) blow you away.  I have to say that on Gods of Egypt the effects worked extremely well. There’s this show stopping scene with these two giant monster Cobra snakes attacking Horus that was just awesome.  Actually, what Gods of Egypt feels the most like is those old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies, with all the monsters and creatures.

Alex Proyas brought Egypt to life in grand fashion. Gods of Egypt feels like one of those big budget bible movies like Ben Hur (1925) or The Ten Commandments (1956), you know, films with thousands of extras and huge sets, only this time the sets and the extras are mostly digital. Alex Proyas is famous for directing dark moody films like The Crow (1994) and Dark City (1998), so Gods of Egypt is a change of pace for Proyas. This is a huge fantasy, action adventure, which in my opinon Proyas directed with gusto, with an affection for this type of film. If only it hadn’t tanked so spectacularly at the box office…it’s one of those films that didn’t deserve to fail at all, I’m sure it will connect with audiences down the road. I place it among the cream of the crop of new fantasy films like Immortals (2011), 300 (2006), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) or Brett Ratner’s extremely underrated Hercules (2014).  One of the things that Gods of Egypt is being accused of is of being “dumb”, and while I won’t be the first to admit it’s not Shakespeare, I have to say that it does play with its fair share of important themes. I mean, here’s a movie in which the Gods learn to care for the people, they learn the value of humans, of the ones they consider less than them. Here’s a movie where Gods die and tyranny rules the land as the people suffer. Here’s a film where true love conquers even the cold arms of death itself. All these themes, embellished by awesome effects, a quick pace and likable characters, I ask: what’s not like? I say give this one a chance, you probably overlooked it, same as I did.

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Dark City (1998)

Title: Dark City: Director’s Cut (1998)

Director: Alex Proyas

Cast: Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt, Richard O’Brien  

Dark City was a victim of the Titanic syndrome, an ailment that struck any of the films that were unfortunate enough to be released during the time that James Cameron’s Titanic (1998) was cruising through theaters. But let’s face it, Titanic wasn’t the only element Dark City had going against it. To begin with, Dark City is a dark brooding film that most people would find either: a) boring b) confusing or c) too talky. But for the right group of people, Dark City would prove to be an engrossing, gothic tale of lost identities and discovering one’s true self, one’s true potential. You see, this is the story of John Murdoch, a man who wakes up one day, not knowing who he is. He does know one thing though: something is seriously wrong in this city! You see, a strange thing happens when the clocks strike twelve; everyone in the city falls asleep and things begin to change. Literally, the whole city begins to contort and twist until by the end of the event, the city is completely different, and as the city changes, so do the people who inhabit it. At one point you might have been a humble blue collar worker, but by the end of the change, you might end up being a member of high society. Strange beings dressed in black go around the city changing things, what’s really going on here? And why doesn’t John Murdock fall under the spell that everybody seems to be so susceptible to? Is there something special about John Murdoch?

Dark City was yet another one of those movies that studios don’t know how to sell. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about films is that when a studio and a director get cold feet, the movie will suffer.  The problem is the general feeling of uncertainty as to how audiences will receive the film. Once this happens, the studio looses faith in the project and they won’t market it properly, because they figure what’s the point of spending money in a movie they think will tank? On top of that, the filmmaker looses faith in his original vision which usually means he or she will edit the film down to a more digestible form, dumbing it down in hopes that audiences will “get it”. A similar thing happened with Ridley Scott’s fantasy film, Legend (1985). When Scott turned in his cut of Legend and showed it to a test audience, the film scored horribly. Scott, terrified that his movie would tank edited the film down, shot a couple of new scenes to make the film “cooler” and added the more contemporary Tangerine Dream soundtrack as opposed to the original classical score. Sadly, the film tanked anyways. In situations like these, I think it’s best for directors to stick to their guns and their original artistic vision. But they never do, because when there’s so many millions of dollars at stake, everybody gets cold feet. Especially when this is your second film and you want to establish yourself as a profitable filmmaker the way Proya’s was at the time of making Dark City.

So Alex Proyas made the changes he had to in order to make Dark City more digestible to audiences. He added in a voice over that “explained” everything before hand to audiences, not unlike the voice over that was added to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982). I’m using Ridley Scott as an example a lot because he is a director that has faced this situation often, making a film that studios are uncertain of. Weird thing with films like this is that years pass, the film becomes a cult classic and then the inevitable “director’s cut” of the film is released, which is what happened with Dark City.  People discovered it on home video after its initial theatrical release and then got its directors cut. The changes aren’t all that huge, but they do make the film more complete. The biggest changes I detected were the elimination of the introductory voice over, some scenes are longer, with more expository dialog, also Jennifer Connelly actually sings with her own voice in her night club scenes, as opposed to getting her voiced dubbed the way it was in the theatrical cut.

The film is strong both visually and thematically. Yet when it was released, its stylish gothic visuals brought some critics to actually label Dark City as style over substance type of film, which couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything this movie is all about substance. Society is being analyzed by those in power, who constantly shift things around. Those scenes in which the whole city landscape twists and contorts are representative of the constant urban renewals. In the film, society sleeps while those in power, hiding behind shadows and darkness manipulate everything, if that isn’t representative of the world we live in, I don’t know what is. The main character, John Murdoch speaks volumes about those of us who are awake, those of us who aren’t sheep, we know something isn’t right. The main character is confused, because life is a mystery, but he moves on, searching for that ultimate truth. I love the fact that he gets things done because he develops mental powers, literally making things happen by using his brains. What Alex Proyas is speaking about here is not conforming, not being a follower but rather, that we should take control of our lives, literally changing our surroundings until we find ultimate happiness. But there’s always that constant search for the truth inspite of all the distractions and the muddled facts.

Dark City is not without influences. It reminded me of Metropolis (1927) (something that Roger Ebert, a staunch defender of Dark City also agrees with) because the city is a like a main character. Same as Fritz Lang’s amazing futuristic vistas in Metropolis, a lot was put into making Dark City’s titular city a wonder to behold. Alex Proyas mixed old school filmmaking techniques with some new ones by using miniatures, paintings and computer generated images to bring this mysterious Dark City to life. The art direction is outstanding, Proya’s use of lights and shadows and the wardrobe makes everything look retro with lots of film noir going for it. Thematically speaking they have similarities as well because both films deal with class issues, albeit in different ways; for example in Metropolis society is presented with the idea that the rich and powerful and the working class should work together for the benefit of all, a sort of idealistic take on the matter, while Dark City takes a diametrically opposed stance, it wants to wake up the sleeper, the worker bee. It proposes the idea of waking up the sleeping masses so that they can become masters of their own destiny, cutting through all the bull crap that was inserted in their mind from inception. So as you can see, the film is not a flimsy one, it has lots to say. Top all that with a great cast, including Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Sutherland and William Hurt and astonishing gothic art direction and you’ve got yourselves a winner of a movie meant to be enjoyed for generations to come.

Rating: 5 out of 5  

  

Vinyan (2008)

Title: Vinyan (2008)

Director: Fabrice Du Welz

Cast: Russell Sewell, Emmanuelle Beart

Review:

So this is what I love about watching movies, discovering new directors and filmmakers. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you discover new filmmakers with interesting visions. How I came to discover Vinyan is my good friend Neil Fulwood of The Agitation of the Mind reviewed it a couple days ago and sparked my interest, particularly because while reading its premise it reminded me of the premise for John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest (1985). So I rented them both and watched them back to back. What I didn’t expect was for both films to be so different! While both films are about parents in search for lost children, in terms of tone and atmosphere, both films are worlds apart. The Emerald Forest is an eco-friendly film, with beautiful colors and landscapes, while Vinyan was a much darker and psychological beast.

In Vinyan, two parents have lost their only child in a Tsunami. When the tsunami hit, the kid was swept away by the current never to be seen again. The couple is having a hard time accepting that they might never see their child again. Now this couple is well off monetarily. They have so much money that they invest in a non profit organization that helps homeless children around the world. They are shown a video of homeless children in Burma, to see if they can fund help for them, when suddenly, the mother spots a silhouette on the video. She swears it’s her long lost son! Could it be that he is still alive? This blurry silhouette that isn’t even facing the camera sparks the mothers desire to see her child again, she swears he must have survived the Tsunami. And so, she looks for a local smuggler who can take her and her husband on a search to Burma. But is it all worth it? Is that blurry image on the video concrete evidence that their long lost son is still alive? Or are they just chasing ghosts?

Vinyan is a film about death and learning to deal with it. Like Aronofsky’s The Fountain (2006) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1984), Vinyan deals with learning to accept that we all die, and that death is a part of our journey. The big stop, the grand finale. Curtains go down, the show is over. If we don’t cope with death, we are prone to loose it mentally, go mad and do stupid things. In Vinyan, finding the lost child isn’t really the central point of the film, this film is more about the couple’s inability to accept things. It’s their journey of denial. We see a mother and a father who go on a steady psychological decline, especially the mother who just won’t accept that her son might be dead. In a key sequence a group of people are firing up these balloons with candles up in the air, supposedly this is done to guide lost spirits to the great beyond. But the mother won’t light one because she says her son isn’t dead.

The video isn’t proof enough that he is alive, and let’s face it, the kid was wiped away by a tsunami. I’d come to the conclusion that he died. So does her husband in the film, who is constantly trying to dissuade her from going on this journey. Still, she won’t give up her search. I get it though, she is the mother and she didn’t have the finality of being able to bury her child. So that uncertainty will always be there, looming in her mind. It’s the reason why she never gives up the search. We feel like we are being dragged down with this couple, deeper and deeper into their oblivion.

Performance wise, both actors out do themselves. I’ve always thought Russell Sewell is so underused in films, he is such a good actor, on this film he represents reason, and a call to sanity. But even he has his doubts, maybe the kid might still be out there. The one that really shines performance wise is Emmanuelle Beart, the desperate mother in search of her long lost child. I really enjoyed her performance, its one of those films where an actor dives really deep into the effects of dementia. And the deeper we dive into her sadness and mental instability, the darker the film gets. In this sense it was similar to Martin Scorcece’s Shutter Island (2009), where the deeper we went into Leonardo DiCaprio’s mind, the deeper and darker the film got. The environments in Vinyan (even nature itself) match the feelings that the characters are going through. The films surroundings are representatives of the main characters mental states. It’s no wonder there’s a major storm about half way through the film all the way till the end. The film is heavy with symbolisms, especially towards its last moments. Emotions and feelings personify and take shape.

And speaking of the end, well, I’m not going to spoil it for you guys, but Vinyan does enter horror film territory and I loved that! The last half of the movie gets really gruesome. I've kept this one as spoiler free as I can, now its up to you to go and watch it. Nothing wrong with this one in my book, a dark psychological piece every step of the way.

Rating: 5 out of 5