Gods of Egypt (itunes download) (2016)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	Deleted Scenes-Digital Storyboards only Featurette-Making Of-Multiple
Rating
Year Of Production	2016
Running Time	127
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	?
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Alex Proyas
Studio Distributor	Entertainment One	Starring	Gerard Butler Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Geoffrey Rush Rachel Blake Brenton Thwaites
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	720p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     This is my second review of an iTunes download in HD, so I will spare you my views on this delivery mechanism. If you want to read them you can find it in my review of Allegiant here.

     Gods of Egypt is a big budget fantasy/historical epic based on Ancient Egyptian gods and the conflicts between themselves and humans. It is set in Egypt in the time of legends rather than the time of recorded history when gods walked the earth and ruled over the land of Egypt. The sun god, Ra (Geoffrey Rush), floats in the heavens keeping the earth safe. His son Osiris (Bryan Brown) rules in Egypt but has decided to step aside, naming his son Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as his successor. Osiris' brother Set (Gerard Butler) however has other ideas and takes over by force, killing Osiris and blinding Horus by stealing his eyes. Set is a brutal ruler and the humans are forced into slavery. A young human, Bek (Brenton Thwaites) teams up with his girlfriend Zaya (Courtney Eaton) and is determined to restore Horus to the throne, believing he will be a better ruler. He manages to recover one of Horus' eyes and heads off to find the banished Horus and help him. Of course, things do not go according to plan and many adventures and trials are in the way of this unlikely duo achieving their aim of overthrowing Set. Other characters include Osiris' wife Isis (Rachel Blake), Horus' girlfriend Hathor (Elodie Yung), God of Knowledge Thoth (Chadwick Boseman) and Urshu the architect (Rufus Sewell). Many other Australian actors appear in smaller roles.

     The film was directed by Alex Proyas and shot in Sydney mostly, although it was a US funded production. The film pretty much failed at the US box office on the back of some savage reviews. The biggest problem here is meant to be the highlight. Every location and setting for the film was created using CGI with the actors mostly working on minimalist sets totally surrounded by blue screens. The unfortunate truth is that the CGI is just not good enough resulting in a very fake feel to the whole proceedings. Whilst I understand that is was meant to be a 'Planet Egypt' look based on the extras, meaning an Egypt that is out of this world, the result is something that just draws you out of the story because it is not believable (even as a fantasy world). The actors don't seem to be part of the environment, essentially, it just doesn’t work. Moving past this is hard for the audience but if you do there is a decent, if silly, fantasy adventure underneath which is quite entertaining despite being a bit long. The cast give it their full efforts and no-one embarrasses themselves. There is some fun dialogue and interesting ideas in the story and visually. The story doesn't always make sense but there is fun to be had.

     This film is hard to recommend but might be worth a look if you like the sound of it. Rent don't buy.

Video

     All things considered, I was pretty happy with the video quality of this film as a digital download. It is not Blu-ray quality but is better than DVD. It was 720p with a download file size of 4.03 Gb. It lacks the bitrate of a Blu-ray which resulted in some flicker at times, some lack of detail in backgrounds and some minor blocking especially during the sand pyramid sequence. There was also some minor aliasing. It was 2.35:1 widescreen which is the OAR.

     There are subtitles available in English which can be formatted to your liking using iTunes. This was quite flexible. They were generally clear and easy to read but for my liking too far into the middle of the screen, which did not seem to be adjustable.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio quality is decent but certainly not lossless. It was formatted as Dolby Digital 5.1 which I passed from my PC, via HDMI, to my amplifier. In iTunes, the highest quality settings for audio output are 192 Kbps and 24 Bit which is obviously below DVD standard. The sound was quite good considering the technical constraints but those expecting Blu-ray standard on a HD download should adjust their expectations. If you are not a home theatre nut, you will probably not care as the audio sounds pretty good. Those of us who have invested in a great home sound system will be underwhelmed. Dialogue was reasonable but the subtitles proved helpful. There was quite a bit of surround presence and some subwoofer use although nothing too exciting.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     A good selection of extras are included via a menu, although they seem to be streamed rather than part of the download. I found the streaming performance significantly worse than Netflix with many pauses. Your experience may vary depending on time of day etc.

Menu

     The menu features music and allows access to the extras and related content on iTunes.

Deleted Storyboards (1:12, 4:31)

     Storyboards for two scenes which were not shot. These storyboards are actually rough animations rather than traditional storyboards. The film certainly didn't need either and could have benefitted from having less scenes in general.

A Divine Vision: Creating a Cinematic Action Fantasy (11:48)

     Featurette which is essentially a making of. Covers production design, the 'planet Egypt' concept, character design, the CGI work, shooting on soundstages in Sydney, the use of animated storyboards and more. Well worth a look.

Of Gods & Mortals: The Cast (10:52)

     A cast focused featurette about their styles, their impact on the characters and costumes, read-throughs, rehearsals and interview snippets. Not bad.

Transformation: Costume, Make-up and Hair (11:10)

     Featurette on the costumes and makeup (fairly obviously) including discussion of reasons for designs, the actors input etc.

On Location: Shooting in Australia (12:44)

     Featurette on the experience of shooting the film in Sydney told from a US point of view.

The Battle for Eternity : Stunts (11:38)

     Focused on the use of a mixture of motion capture, physical stunts, fight choreography etc. to get the fight sequences.

A Window into Another World (10:58)

     Featurette focused on the CGI , the use of scaling to make gods bigger than humans, technical complications and the various animation companies involved (which may explain why it didn't come together visually).

    It is not possible to do a region comparison for a download.

    The video quality is good but not Blu-ray standard.

    The audio quality is good for what it is.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall