Couch Potato: Gods of Egypt, Revenant, AGT

Jaime Lannister on Amazon

Unexpected Fun: Gods of Egypt

Kid the Elder and I picked our weekend rental. She wanted to rent Joy, I said "too much drama." I wanted to rent Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, she said "no more zombies!" So we compromised on Gods of Egypt. It was panned by critics, and only has a 5.6 rating on IMDB, so I wasn't that hopeful. But guess what - it was actually a fun movie!

Gods of Egypt is set in a mythical time when gods ruled Egypt. So just like the engravings on the walls of ancient Egyptian pyramids and temples, the gods are literally larger than life - they tower over humans (aka mortals). That made me smile, and set my mood for the whole movie. I love stories that are a fresh but respectful take on myths and legends.

The movie centers on the retelling of the story of the battle between Horus and Set, but with the inclusion of the story of a mortal young thief (possibly inspired by the Egyptian legend of the Artful Thief who got into Pharoah's vault). Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau aka Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones) is happy-go-lucky young god who likes to hunt and party. He is the falcon (gods in this movie can change into a god-like animal form) so he has super-eyesight and never misses. The thief, Bek (Brenton Thwaites aka Prince Philip on Maleficent) wants nothing to do with gods and cares only about his true love Zaya.



The story starts with Horus' coronation day - his father Osiris is about to pass the crown to him, when Set, Osiris brother, interrupts the proceedings and all hell chaos breaks loose. I mean, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye or two, right? Lots of over-the-top CGI action, adventure, wit, and a wonderful and not big enough part for Rufus Sewell as a lesser villain, the Builder, ensue.

Kid the elder said her complaint was that if you didn't know about Egyptian mythology you could get confused. But if you do have some background you will appreciate the little bits that show real research (like the lettuce).

Kid the younger, before the movie, echoed the social media complaint that it was a "white-washed cast." Not really true - the female lead, Hathor, is played by Elodie Yung. As I understand it, it's an Australian film and I imagine casting was done by Australians. That stuff doesn't really matter to me - I like to judge actors by performance and I think they did well. I liked it.

Unexpected Comedy: The Revenant

Hubby also rented The Revenant, so watched that. Magnificent scenery. Loved the shots of nature. But my suspension of disbelief was broken by the bear mauling, because no one could survive that, so from that point on Leonardo DiCaprio's travails only made me laugh because they were so ridiculous. Rating: unexpected comedy. Also, I did have to google to find out what the ending meant.

By the way, The Revenent is based on the novel by Michael Punke.

Always Unexpected: America's Got Talent

America's Got Talent is back on. The first round of auditions features a really young stand-up comic and a guy with nothing to say for himself. Looking forward to next week!