Before I watched this movie, I heard about the negative reviews about it. I read that the CGI was awful and that acting was terrible.
I must say people are too quick to criticize. This movie has a unique style and that is what made a lot of people to judge very quickly.
This movie is not a realistic or historical representation of Egypt and it never tries to be. It is more of a picture of how gods would look like and with a taste of magic and dream. The fact that gods are portrayed twice the size of humans should be the first sign of this style.
The color palette chosen for the movie is beautiful focusing on yellow of gold and brown of sand. This coupled with the vibrant and warm colors of the environments and set pieces create a delightful picture to watch.
The story is interesting to follow as it unfolds right from the beginning of the movie with a clash between two brothers. As it is common in these kind of stories, the bad and the good characters are easy to see from the beginning.
The CGI is mostly good and not as bad as it is called out by some people. The creatures are nicely created and the effects are mostly good with the exception of fire/explosion effects. There were times they felt a bit cheap considering the big budget of 140 million dollars of the movie.
I really like the humorous conversations between Bek (Brenton Thwaites) and Horus(Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau), the god of sky. Brenton's character really added a much appreciated tone of fun to the movie and made me feel that familiar sense of feeling of similar movies like Prince of Persia(2010). Actually this movie has some resemblance even to the video game of Prince of Persia for example with the design of creature/guardians. Anyway Brenton Thwaites really puts a good performance and I am curious to see what he will be able to do in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Gerard Butler fulfills his familiar role of war leader very well as expected, of course he is no stranger to these roles.
Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau does a great job portraying his character Horus as well. Although it would be nicer to see a bit more of his character's background.
Overall this movie offers a fun, humorous, entertaining story in a fantasy world filled with magical powers of gods and hatred and love. This movie is bold, vibrant and fast, it's a shame some people couldn't see beyond the distinct choice of style, which I personally found interesting.
