Gods of Egypt: too self-indulgent for my taste

Plot:
In an alternative Egypt, the world is flat and gods live among mortal humans. The Egyptian gods are distinguished from humans by their greater height, golden blood, and ability to transform into animal-headed deity forms.

Bek (Brenton Thwaites), a mortal thief with little faith in gods and their good will towards mortals, with his love Zaya (Courtney Eaton) are attending the coronation of Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), lord of the air, by his father, the abdicating King of Egypt Osiris (Bryan Brown). Horus is shown getting ready for his coronation as his love Hathor (Élodie Yung) surprises him. Horus hints at marriage and they discuss Hathor's protection bracelet made of the stars which Horus gave to her to protect and save her from her previous role as a guide to dead souls in the underworld.

  

However, during the ceremony Osiris is killed by his jealous brother Set (Gerard Butler), god of the desert, who seizes the throne and declares a new regime where the dead will have to pay with riches to pass into the afterlife. Horus is stripped of his eyes, which are the source of his power, and almost killed. Hathor pleads with Set to spare him and he is instead exiled. Hathor becomes an enslaved mistress to Set.

A year later Bek has been working as a slave building monuments, while Zaya is now under the ownership of the chief architect Urshu (Rufus Sewell). Believing that Horus is the only one who can defeat Set, she gives Bek the floorplans to Set's treasure vault. Bek is able to steal back one of Horus' eyes . However, Urshu finds out about their theft and kills Zaya as the couple flee.

 

Bek takes her body to the blind Horus and makes a bargain: Horus agrees to bringing Zaya back from the dead for his eye and Bek will share his knowledge about Set's pyramid.

Later, they are traveling to Ra's (Geoffrey Rush) divine vessel above the Earth. Horus is unable to convince Ra to grant him his power in full or to intervene and defeat Set himself, as Ra is both neutral about their conflict and daily at war with an enormous shadow beast, Apophis, that threatens to devour the world. Nevertheless, Horus obtains divine waters from Ra's vessel, which can be used at Set's pyramid to extinguish the desert thirst and weaken him gravely. Ra tells Horus that his weakness is the result of him not fulfilling his destiny, which Horus believes means avenging his parents' deaths.

Set asks Hathor to take him to the underworld which he next desires to conquer, but she refuses and manages to escape. Eventually, Hathor finds Bek and Horus. Horus at first doesn't trust her, as she is Set's mistress who had blinded him, while she tries to convince him that Set is her enemy as well. When they tell her of their plan regarding Set's pyramid, she warns them of a guardian sphinx who will kill anyone not wise enough to solve a riddle. The group then heads to the library of Thoth (Chadwick Boseman) the god of wisdom, recruiting him to solve the riddle.

Arriving at Set's shrine, they overcome its traps, including the sphinx, to reach the source of Set's power. But before they can pour the divine water in, Set traps them and reveals Horus' deception to Bek: that he is unable to bring Zaya back from the dead. Set destroys their flask of divine water and kills Thoth by taking his brain, but Horus is able to save Hathor and Bek.

Horus admits before the enraged Bek to caring more about his revenge than the mortals. Hathor feels guilt for not exposing the deception, and as the goddess of love helps the doomed lovers. She sacrifices her own safety for Zaya's payment into the afterlife, by giving Bek the protective bracelet which stops the underworld souls from overwhelming her and calling Anubis to take him to Zaya. Therefore, she lets herself be dragged to the underworld, while Horus realizes that he still loves her.

Having obtained Thoth's brain, Osiris's heart, one of Horus's eyes and wings from Nephthys (Emma Booth), Set has them combined with himself. Set travels to Ra, appealing to his father for approval and asking why Osiris was favored, while he was denied leadership and children. Ra claims that all of Set's prior maltreatment were tests preparing Set for his true role, the honor and burden of taking Ra's place as the defender of the world aboard his solar barge fighting against the demon Apophis. Set is dismayed to hear his destiny is to be alone above the planet until he dies, and refuses. He wants to destroy the afterlife so that he can be immortal. Ra tries to fight him, but cannot, as Set has taken the powers of the other gods. He then stabs Ra, taking his fiery spear of power, and casts him off the boat, freeing Apophis to consume both the mortal and underworld realms.

Bek finds Zaya who refuses Hathor's gift as she doesn't want an afterlife without Bek, but then Apophis attacks and the gate to the afterlife is closed. Bek returns to the mortal world where Horus is amazed that Bek still wants to help take down Set, but Bek tells him it was Zaya who told him to, as she still has faith in Horus.


Horus climbs up the outer wall of an obelisk Set is standing on and attempts to battle him, but is heavily outmatched. Bek ascends on the inside and joins the battle removing Horus's stolen eye from Set's armor, being wounded in the process. As Bek slides toward the edge of the obelisk, he throws the eye toward Horus who must choose to catch it or save Bek instead. Horus reaches for Bek and apologizes for all he has put him through. As they plummet toward the ground, Horus finds that he now has the power to transform into his divine form, and he catches Bek and flies him to safety. Horus realizes that it wasn't the recovery of his eye or revenge that was his destiny, it was the protection of his people that he needed to fight for. Now Horus has the strength for battling Set, and he gains the obelisk and kills him. After the battle and Set's death, he then finds Ra wounded and floating in space and returns his spear to him, allowing Ra to once again repel Apophis.

As Horus returns to Bek, a child holds out his other eye which she has found, while people cheer him. But Horus's joy turns to sadness as he arrives to find Bek dying. Horus carries him to Osiris's tomb and lays him beside Zaya. Ra, his grandfather, arrives and offers to bestow any power on him to repay Horus for his life and Egypt's survival, but all Horus wants is bringing Bek and Zaya back to life. The other gods are also revived and have their attributes restored. Horus is crowned king by Thoth and declares the afterlife will be for those who do good in the world. Bek is made chief advisor, and he gives Horus back Hathor's bracelet, letting Horus leave to rescue her from the underworld.


Review:
i rather dislike some of the plots. i mean, it was too convenient at times when the Horus-Bek pair triumphed against their adversaries. plus the villain looks decent, not too menacing yet is too detestable in action. nampak muka Set baik je, tau tak!

but Zaya and Hathor both are beautiful, i grant you guys that. as for Ra, the premise of his power is so laughable. how can he be the omnipotent when he couldn't even banish Apophis for good? in the words of Hulk, "puny god!"

i mean, Hollywood has been making movies about Gods and Demigods, be it Greek, Egyptian and whatnot, still, the Gods of their imagination put on screen are full of weakness and sometimes depravities. how ever can we worship that?

think about that. surely there must be the Greatest Power that exist to create us mere mortals and He must be free of all weakness that we have. Because if there is a sign of weakness, of being in need of something, there is no reason for him to be worshiped, for that is no god indeed. and the issue of many gods.. how can that be? i mean, as shown in this movie, too many gods will lead to instability and fighting. there must be only one God, and He is just as well as omnipotent, free from any weaknesses, worthy to be worshiped by all that He creates. nothing at all like Ra or Zeus, for that matter.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter: too much CinemaSins!

the Poster:


the Trailer:


the Plot:
In 1818, Abraham "Abe" Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) lives with his parents, Nancy (Robin McLeavy) and Thomas (Joseph Mawle), who work at a plantation owned by Jack Barts (Marton Csokas). There, Lincoln befriends a young African American boy, William Johnson (later to be played by Anthony Mackie), and intervenes when he sees Johnson being beaten by an overseer. Because of his son's actions, Thomas is fired and his employer demands the debt he owed to be paid fully. That night, Lincoln sees Barts break into his house and attack Nancy. She dies shortly afterwards. Thomas tells Lincoln that Barts poisoned Nancy.

Nine years later, feeling vengeful, Lincoln almost drinks himself into a stupor to build up his courage to pursue Barts and put a bullet into him. A stranger casually comments on his drinking motives but Lincoln simply ignores him and walks away to fulfill his purpose.

Lincoln attacks Barts at the docks, but Barts, who is actually a vampire, overpowers him. However, before Barts can kill him, Lincoln is rescued by Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), the stranger he met at the bar.

the next day as Lincoln awakens, Sturges explains that vampires exist, and offers to teach Lincoln to be a vampire hunter. Lincoln accepts and spends the summer with Henry sharpening his senses. During his training, Sturges tells Lincoln that the vampires in America descend from Adam (Rufus Sewell), a vampire who owns a plantation in New Orleans with his sister, Vadoma (Erin Wasson). Sturges also tells Lincoln of the vampires' weakness, silver, and presents him with a silver pocket watch. Henry nurses Lincoln back to health and explains some of the nature of vampirism, emphasizing that some vampires are good and others are evil.

After a certain period of his training, Lincoln travels to Springfield, Illinois to start hunting the vampires. There he gets a job from Joshua Speed (Jimmi Simpson) as a shopkeeper while he studies Law. Henry sends Lincoln the names and addresses of evil vampires; Abraham dutifully tracks them down and kills them. in the process, he meets Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whom he would later marry.

Eventually, Lincoln successfully finds and defeats Barts. Before dying, Barts reveals that Sturges is also a vampire. Lincoln confronts Sturges, who reveals that, several years ago, he was attacked and bitten by Adam. Because Sturges' soul was impure, he became a vampire, and that prevented him from harming Adam or any other vampire since "Only the living can kill the dead". Sturges has since been training vampire hunters, hoping to destroy Adam. Disappointed, Lincoln decides to abandon furthering his mission.

However, when a casket of Barts arrived to his mansion, together with the silver watch, Adam is furious and kidnaps Johnson to lure Lincoln into coming to his ball at his plantation. in order to save Johnson, Lincoln recruits Speed in the mission. however, it is a trap as Adam captures Lincoln and tries to recruit him, revealing his plans to turn the United States into a nation of the undead. Speed rescues his friends, and they barely escape to Ohio with the help of the slaves.

Lincoln decides to enter politics in order to free the Southern slaves from the vampires who are feeding on them, much to the chagrin of Henry Sturges. Henry argues that allowing the southern vampires to have slaves as a food source is the only thing keeping the vampires from attacking everyone else. Lincoln counters that allowing this is immoral and that everyone deserves freedom. Henry and Lincoln's relationship seemingly ends after the disagreement. Lincoln puts aside his axe and is determined to end the scourge of vampires and slavery through political means.

Lincoln's 1860 presidential election triggers the secession of the southern states and the start of the American Civil War which has been a disaster for the Union. Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation to not only free the slaves but eliminate the vampires main food source. However, the war takes a personal toll on Lincoln. Vadoma sneaks into the White House disguised as a maid and kills Lincoln's son, Willy. Henry appears at the White House and offers to turn Willy into a vampire so that he will "live" again, but Lincoln is unwilling to allow it, causing a drift between him and Mary Todd, who finally learn about the vampire-hunting secrets that Lincoln kept away from her.

On the Union-Confederate battlefields, Adam deploys his vampires, and this causes the massacre of the Union army on the first day at Gettysburg.

Being so frustrated at so many loss of the Union soldiers, it drives Lincoln into realising only the silver can kill the vampires so that the Union soldiers have a standing chance. He orders the confiscation of all the silverware to produce silver weapons. Speed, believing that Lincoln is tearing the nation apart, informs Adam that Lincoln will transport the silver by train to Gettysburg.

On the train, Adam and Vadoma, who have set fire to the upcoming trestle, attack Lincoln, Sturges, and Johnson. During the fight Adam learns that the train holds only rocks. Speed reveals that his betrayal was a ruse to lure Adam into a trap. Enraged, Adam bites Speed and kills him. The carriages begin to break loose off the train and the group have to jump carriages to escape. Adam corners them but Lincoln gets out his silver pocket watch and punches Adam in the chest, killing him, and Lincoln escapes the exploding train alongside his allies.

Meanwhile, Mary and the ex-slaves have transported the silver to Gettysburg through the Underground Railroad - it is here that Vadoma is killed by Mary using her son's necklace. The now leaderless Confederate vampires stage a final, massive assault and are met head-on by the Union. Armed with their silver weapons, the Union soldiers destroy the vampires and eventually win the battle.

Nearly two years later, on April 14, 1865, Sturges tells Lincoln that the remaining vampires have fled the country. Sturges tries to convince Lincoln to allow him to turn Lincoln into a vampire, so that he can become immortal and continue to fight vampires, but Lincoln declines and leaves for the theater with his wife.

In modern times, Sturges approaches a man at a bar in Washington, D.C. as he once approached Lincoln.


the Riviu:
it was a rather flimsy plot with loopholes that elephants can dance around so cosily, in herds! there are so many chances for Abe to finish off Barts but he didn't do it, sticking instead to Henry's postal orders. why? even during the rescue of Johnson, he should have finished Adam off but he didn't, waiting instead for everyone in the south to suffer. plus, why did he have to abandon the mission of ridding vampires should his instructor was also a vampire? this is not about henry for g-sake!

and i tend to notice that this film is so crowd-pleasing. Johnson had been bitten but that doesn't turn him into vampire. the fiery train, how in the world that they escaped that? and how did Abe recover so quickly from his nightly wounds? grrr..

sincerely, this movie has too many holes in the story that i'm tired of enumerating them. too much. even Abe's prosthetic face seems too fake!

as for Henry, given that he can fight off Adam (as shown in the final fighting scene) and whatnots, he should stick to that. be a protector instead boleh? instead of making excuses for himself and preying upon vengeful desperate souls..

entahlah. it's a boring pointless film. the special effects are ok though.