When I began seeing trailers for Gods of Egypt (2016), I recall feeling a distinct desire to want to avoid it at all costs.  This is not because of my Catholic Faith.  Actually, there are a few lines in the movie, as I will later underscore, that are useful in thinking about certain aspects of Catholicism.  Instead of being a competition of belief systems, I simply thought it all looked a bit silly.  With a few exceptions, I have never been a fan of the fantasy genre.  Before you go accusing me of relegating Egyptian culture to the realm of make believe, understand that the film added an extra layer of tomfoolery to the proceedings.  I am no Egyptologist, but some of the things portrayed would stretch the imagination of King Tut himself.  In short, prepare yourself for a strange journey.

The first journey we are told about by the narrator, Bek (Brenton Thwaites), is that of Set, the god of the desert, who is banished to the wastes for . . . reasons.  Later we are told that Set’s father and god of the sun, Ra (Geoffrey Rush), had sent Set into the sands as a test.  Guess who is not going to be happy about that scenario?  We then drop in on young Bek himself as he navigates the streets of a city that is the stuff of the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens (2009-present) fever dreams.  He steals a dress for Zaya (Courtney Eaton), his lover, to whom he has promised status and wealth.  She does not seem to mind his antics, but insists that the gods will provide.  The one she is keen on is Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the god of air.  He is about to take over ruling Egypt from his father, Osiris (Bryan Brown), god of the afterlife.  I suppose I should mention that gods live amongst the mortals in this story.  Before Horus is to be crowned, he is about to ask Hathor (Élodie Yung), goddess of love, to be his wife, but he is interrupted by the beginning of the ceremony.  However, the ceremony is interrupted yet again by Set.  At first, it appears that he has come to pay homage to his nephew on the day of Horus’ coronation.  It turns sour, though, when he murders Osiris in front of everyone and duels Horus.  The god of air is defeated in the struggle, but instead of killing Horus, Set takes his nephew’s all-seeing eyes.  Horus is spared when Hathor offers herself to Set.  Set takes the throne instead, and his rule is punitive, being all about aggrandizing himself.  In going against the wishes of his brother, Set makes entrance into the afterlife dependent on the goods a soul can offer at its judgement.  This has a major impact on mortals, who are mostly enslaved to build monuments to Set.  This includes Zaya, who becomes a servant to Urshu (Rufus Sewell), Set’s head architect.  Bek is tasked with hauling stones, but he slips away whenever he can to visit Zaya.  Whenever he does, she continues to preach faith in Horus, who she sees as the only one capable of stopping Set’s plan to destroy all the gods.  Bek had never been much for religion, but he trusts Zaya.  Thus, he is willing to break into one of Set’s temples in order to pilfer the eyes of Horus and return them to their rightful owner.  Because of her position, she is able to provide Bek with the plans for the building, which assists him in the heist.  Though there is only one for the taking, he successfully makes off with it, and then tries to get Zaya to come with him.  Unfortunately, Urshu had learned of the scheme.  Despite getting away on the architect’s chariot, Urshu fires an arrow in their wake that mortally wounds Zaya.  Upon getting to the tomb of Osiris, where the blinded Horus has been residing since being deposed, Bek bargains for the return of the eye for keeping Zaya from dying.  However, because she has already passed, she is too far gone for Horus to do anything.  Bek presses anyway, saying that he will take Horus to his other eye if the god of air will return Zaya to the living.  Horus has no power to do so, but he says he will do it anyway.  Thus, these two unlikely companions are off, but instead of going after the other eye, Horus takes Bek to meet Horus’ grandfather.  Ra is busy keeping the sun moving around what is apparently a flat Earth, and is indifferent to whoever is in charge below.  Nonetheless, Ra does seem to prefer Horus, so he allows his grandson to take a vial from the divine waters.  A drop of the liquid in Set’s desert sanctuary will weaken the current ruler of Egypt.  There is one catch, however, and that is that the path is guarded by a Sphinx.  In order to pass, they will need to answer a riddle.  If there is a deity equipped to handle such a problem, it is Thoth (Chadwick Boseman), the god of wisdom.  On the way to Thoth, they are joined by Hathor, who abandons Set when she learns that Horus is still resisting.  As for Thoth, he takes a little convincing by Bek, who appears to outwit the wise one into thinking that he cannot solve the expected puzzle.  It does take a couple tries, but eventually they get to their destination.  Unfortunately, Set is there waiting for them.  The vial is knocked to the ground, and the as yet unnoticed Bek is about to complete the mission when Set suggests to the mortal that Horus has been lying.  It is, in fact, impossible to bring back Zaya.  It is the opening Set needs to destroy the glass container and steal Thoth’s brain.  It is the last piece of the gods Set needs to become some kind of super god.  His aim is to become immortal on Earth, not just in the afterlife, and he defeats Ra to unleash a world consuming demon on the planet.  The only ones standing in the way are Bek and Horus.  Luckily, Horus has figured out how to transform again into his golden bird form, and is thus able to stand up to Set.  With a little help from Bek, Set is defeated and everything is put right.  This includes Ra granting Horus’ wish that Bek and Zaya be reunited among the living.  As such, Bek ascends to second in command, and is left in charge of the kingdom as Horus buggers off somewhere.

The suggestion at the end of Gods of Egypt is that Horus is going to go after Hathor, who had given up her bracelet to give Zaya the goods she needs to enter the afterlife.  The bangle had been the one thing keeping her from being trapped in the demon world, again for reasons that are nebulous at best.  Because this is loosely about ancient Egypt, the afterlife is an important aspect of the story.  The concern that all the characters have about it is actually not too different from Catholic teaching.  The inevitability of our death is something that should concern us.  Remarkably, one of the last lines in the film could have been lifted from the pages of The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Horus tells those assembled for his second attempt at being crowned that in order to cross over to the right place after passing away, we will be judged on what we do in this life.  In other words, you do not need to be buried with a whole bunch of fancy stuff in order to impress those assessing your worth for eternity.  This is a particular Catholic belief, as we believe that works, as well as grace, are what qualifies a person for Heaven.  Our protestant brethren think it is grace alone, but then again, they did take out parts of the Bible to fit this view.  To be fair, the Church was becoming somewhat like the Ancient Egyptians.  The practice of indulgences can be somewhat likened to the monetary offerings of the movie, at least how they were given at one point in history.  The Church abandoned this tradition a few centuries ago.  Indulgences remain, but they are more along the line of the freely given graces mentioned a moment ago.  Further, where Christianity and the Egyptian religious beliefs definitively diverge is in the fact is that the former is directly inspired by God, whereas the Egyptians created their gods and goddesses from their imaginations.  You can say that I am being biased or unfair, but if you look at the way we are told these deities behaved, this fact should be clear.

What is less clear is anything else in Gods of Egypt.  For example, Ra is stabbed through the torso by Set and left to drift in space.  Like other instances before this, you would think that is it for Ra since other gods and goddesses have died.  Nope!  Horus catches his grandpa, says hocus pocus (not literally), and Ra is good to go.  I recommend going and doing anything else other than watching this movie.