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Archive for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Gods of Egypt

Mar02

Gods-of-Egypt-Fiery-PosterTitle: Gods of Egypt

Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush, Alex Proyas (Director)

Genre: Fantasy

Watched: March 1, 2016

Summary: Deities & Demigods

_

Sure Gods of Egypt was panned and is tanking at the box office, but it’s a big budget fantasy movie with (vaguely) Egyptian deities and Jaime Lannister — how could I not go see that? I’m glad I did too, because this is one of those films, like Jupiter Ascending, that I enjoyed in the theatre, but would have bored me at home.

Looks dumb, huh?

But if you totally suspend disbelief. Ignore the voice over. Abandon hope of character development. Forget the incoherent mythology. And turn a blind eye to Egyptian religion cribbed solely from Dungeons and Dragons: Deities & Demigods.

If you can do all that, and just view it as a “Egyptian inspired fantasy”, it’s actually a fun romp. The film is gorgeous in a CGI kind of way. I mean, this movie may have the MOST CGI of any live action movie yet made. Ever. They must have built more real sets for a Star Wars prequel! And the character writing is simplistic. But the actors actually do a good job with it. Particularly Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the two mortals Brenton Thwaites and Courtney Eaton, Chadwick Boseman, and the ever enjoyable Geoffrey Rush. And there are some funny lines. No one takes themselves very seriously, director on down. Gerard Butler’s Set is a little annoying, but not nearly as bad as the recent General Zod (barf!).

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But the GOE plot is easy to follow. Nonsense, in its way, but straightforward without a lot of mumbo jumbo. It’s an old score quest / adventure plot in that way. None of the battles last that long, which is great, although there are a lot of them. But they are each different. And there are many cool sets (ahem, CGI modeled sets). We have palaces, temples, secret tombs, the afterlife (loved Anubis), gods that are twice the height of people, and my personal favorite: Ra’s “boat of a million years.”

maxresdefault (1)

The film is ridiculously anachronistic, with modernistic jokes and like the recent Hercules movies (set in 1200 BC) where they ride horses with saddles, stirrups, and all that — none of which was invented until much later. Here, besides the gods and magic (fine), you have giant pedestrian freeways, stone traps made of rock with the properties of aluminum, sandals with buckles and all sorts of things that certainly didn’t exist even in New Kingdom Egypt, not to mention “pre-historic” Egypt when the gods reigned — but I didn’t think about it — again, Egyptian inspired fantasy world.

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Some of the magic and general religious-magic was kinda cool. Like the way Anubis emerges and descends into a swirl of dust. The production did a tiny itty bit of research before throwing almost all of it out. When Horus sends Zaya’s soul to the afterlife he says something to the effect of “may the earth doors of Aker open to you, may the sky doors of Geb open to you” which is standard Egyptian magio-religious rhetoric out of the Book of the Dead.

Sigh. Too bad they’d never use this kind of giant CGI budget to an actual real plot set in a recreated real ancient world.

Find more movie reviews here.

goe_gallery_07a-512438375e.0

Almost looks like Beastmaster or something!

Related posts:

  1. Warcraft Movie Trailer
  2. The Lost Gate
  3. Book Review: The Lightning Thief
  4. The Wretched of Muirwood
  5. Movie Review: Thor
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Alex Proyas, Ancient Egyptian deities, Brenton Thwaites, Chadwick Boseman, Fantasy, Geoffrey Rush, Gerard Butler, Gods of Egypt, Horus, Movie Review, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

Game of Thrones – Episode 3

May02

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 3 – May 1, 2011

Status: First Season now airing on HBO

Summary: Amazing!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

Episode 3 is titled “Lord Snow,” in reference to Jon Snow‘s nickname at the wall. This episode continues, and I think essentially wraps up, the trio of scene setting episodes. This world is so complex, with so many characters, it needed a three hour pilot. Still, it’s a damn enjoyable setup.

We do find ourselves with a different feel than last week’s “The Kingsroad.” This episode is brighter and faster, better I think, but also lacks any real momentous events or a dramatic conclusion. Episode 2 started off slower, but ended with a bang. Episode 3 just fundamentally introduces the Wall and King’s Landing. But both are fun. Varys and Littlefinger are a delight. There are a lot of very strong scenes in here, mostly in the area of character development and exposition. The scene where Robert, Barristan, and Jaime discuss their first kills is terrific. Others will and have quote it, but I will again. “They don’t tell you that they all shit themselves. They never put that part in the ballads.” Just awesome.

Tyrion and Arya continue to rock, Jon is building momentum. There’s good work with Arya and her sister, even better work with her and her father, and the fan fave delicious introduction of her “dancing instructor,” Syrio. No one who’s read the books doesn’t love Syrio and the waterdance. You can see subtle little nods to the characters, like Arya listing off those she hates, as this will flare into the flame that keeps her warm in the dark cold nights.

There are also curious absences. What happened to Ghost?  (Jon Snow’s albino wolf)  And Commander Mormont’s raven?  And time pressure makes a few of the scenes feel very very fast indeed for those viewers who haven’t read the books (particularly the Dany scenes this time around). If any of readers are in this camp (not having read the books), please comment below and offer your opinions of the show, I’m really curious. I love it, but some of this is propped up by my encyclopedic knowledge of the characters and their relationships.

I do also have to say that I don’t love the weird mixed race look of the Dothraki. The Khal is fine, but I would have just cast the rest as Mongols and made them straight up raw and tough. The blood rider is so young he looks soft, and middle eastern to boot. Who’s with me in thinking that Endo from Lethal Weapon would have made the perfect blood rider? — 25 years ago.

King’s Landing (aka Malta) has a different sunnier feel than I imagined it in the books, but I kinda like it, down to the interesting little detail of the floors always being dirty. And in a number of scenes the CG view out the windows is gorgeous, high up on the towers with the whole city laid out beneath like in Napoli. I also liked Maester Aemon, but he needs those white “blind guy” eyes because that’s how I imagine him.

Exposition or no, I enjoyed every minute of this episode, and we’re poised for some serious stuff in the hours to come ahead. Next week, jousts and dwarves in a pickle.

My reviews of other episodes: [Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4].

Click here for some trailers for and about the series.

Or find out about my own fantasy novel, The Darkening Dream.

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – Episode 2
  2. Game of Thrones – Episode 1
  3. Game of Thrones – The Houses
  4. Making Game of Thrones
  5. Inside Game of Thrones
By: agavin
Comments (12)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: Arts, Arya, Emilia Clarke, episode, Episode Review, Fantasy, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Historical fantasy, Jon Snow, Major houses in A Song of Ice and Fire, Malta, Mongols, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Programs, review, Television, Television program, Television Review, World of A Song of Ice and Fire

Game of Thrones – Episode 1

Apr02

Title: Game of Thrones

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Watched: Episode 1 – March 31, 2011

Status: First Season coming to HBO April 17

Summary: Amazing!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

I had the privilege to get an advance screening three weeks before the premier of the first episode of the new HBO miniseries Game of Thrones. For those of you living in a hole, it’s based on the stunning (and huge) series of novels by George R. R. Martin called the Song of Ice and Fire. The TV series is named after the first volume, Game of Thrones, and the first season covers the first novel. Currently there are four books to the series, with a fifth due this July.

These are arguably my favorite fantasy books (read them all twice) and fantasy is my favorite genre. I’m not reviewing the books specifically here, but it is worth noting that they are stupendously good. Political, dark, complex, and full of very human characters. While this is fantasy, set in a sort of medieval-England-like kingdom, the fantasy is light. There are no armies of trolls and orcs. Just good old fashioned human sex and violence and a touch of the magical.

Which makes it perfect for HBO, and if the first episode is any indication they have done a stupendous job of adaption. I was blown away. I wanted to like it. I love HBO dramas so I hoped I would. But I’m critical by nature, so I was thrilled to find it exceed my expectations on all accounts.

This is a very faithful adaption of fantastic source material, but the series also plays to television’s strengths. The production is lavish, landscapes, sets, costumes, food, everything looked tremendous. And sounded tremendous. I saw a 35 mm print on the big screen with a serious sound system. After the titles alone (gorgeous) and the pitch perfect music I had goosebumps.

The casting/acting is also fantastic, and combined with the great writing is going to make this ambitious show work. These books have a lot of characters, and very well written ones. There is no big Sauron-type villan, there are only conflicted people. The Lannister brothers are awesome. My favorite character is Tyrion, the  Imp, brilliant, sharp-tongued youngest son of the land’s richest (and meanest) Lord. This is a tough role, and made even more difficult by the inherently limited roster of actors short enough to play it. Peter Dinklage is off to a tremendous start, stealing every scene he’s in. Awesome, and cudos Peter! Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is also superb as his taller and prettier older brother Jaime. Both are complex characters, and it’s good to see them nailed out of the gate. The Stark daughters and Jon Snow were also great, plus Sean Bean dominates with all the powerful gravitas that Ned Stark deserves. Emilia Clarke is gorgeous and appropriately vulnerable as Daenerys Stormborn — I’ll be interested to see if she can handle the character changes in store for her. Some seriously good casting across the board.

The writing is also great. This episode pounds through a LOT of material. A lot of introductions, and a good amount of setup and action, and it does it without feeling rushed. I’ll be curious to see how viewers who have not read the books cope with the staggering array of characters. It seemed to me that D.B. Weiss and David Benioff (they had the writing credits) did an incredible job unfolding the parallel threads of the book’s many viewpoints into one seamless narrative. They’ve linearized the story a bit, which actually makes it clearer. I hope that newbies give these characters a chance to unfold because as startling and brilliant as the first novel/season is, it’s really with books two and three that things really get crazy.

The atmosphere was perfect too. Detailed and moody. Filmed mostly in Ireland and Malta (across the narrow sea) it feels authentically “celtic.” And there is the now HBO standard hefty dose of nudity. We’ll also see what the producers make of some of the books’ more sordid moments — which are one of the things that make them such a dark pleasure to read. Now the only problem is that I have to wait a couple weeks for the second episode!

Congrats HBO and George R. on such an awesome job. Now just make sure to green-light the next 6 or so seasons!

Click here for some trailers for and about the series.

Or my review of A Dance With Dragons.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed

or all my Game of Thrones posts or episode reviews:

Season 1: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Season 2: [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]

Season 3: [21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30]

Season 4: [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40]

Season 5: [41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]

Season 6: [51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57]

Related posts:

  1. Inside Game of Thrones
  2. Game of Thrones – The Houses
By: agavin
Comments (15)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: D.B. Weiss, David Benioff, Emilia Clarke, episode, episode 1, episode 1 review, Episode Review, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, HBO, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Song of Ice and Fire, Television, Television Review
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