Alex Proyas is calling all film critics “deranged idiots,” and not because they liked his new movie… just in case you needed that clarified. No, Proyas’ Gods Of Egypt has not been received very well by the majority of critics – in fact, most of them have pretty much savaged it.
This is never an easy pill for any filmmaker to swallow, of course, but some directors do handle the negative reviews better than others. And after today, I think we can safely place Mr. Proyas in the “others” category.
The director posted a lengthy rant about the current state of film criticism to his Facebook page this weekend, and you can check out some excerpts from it below.
I have never gotten great reviews… on any movie I’ve made really, apart from those by reviewers who think for themselves and make up their own opinions. Sadly those type of reviewers are nearly all dead. I guess I have the knack of rubbing reviewers the wrong way – always have. This time of course they have bigger axes to grind – they can rip into my movie while trying to make their mainly pale asses look so politically correct by screaming “white-wash!!!” like the deranged idiots they all are.
…this modern age of texting has rendered them less than worthless, so they will probably go the way of the dinosaur or the newspaper shortly – don’t movie-goers text their friends with what they thought of a movie? Seems most critics spend their time trying to work out what most people will want to hear. How do you do that? Why these days it is so easy… just surf the net to read other reviews or what bloggers are saying – no matter how misguided an opinion of a movie might be before it actually comes out. Lock a critic in a room with a movie no one has even seen and they will not know what to make of it. Because contrary to what a critic should probably be they have no personal taste or opinion, because they are basing their views on the status quo.
…I applaud any film-goer who values their own opinion enough to not base it on what the pack-mentality say is good or bad.
Again, it can’t be easy to pour any amount of blood, sweat and tears into a project only to have it torn apart by critics – but Mr. Proyas probably should have thought a little more about this before posting.
I haven’t seen Gods Of Egypt myself yet so I can’t comment on its quality (or lack thereof), but our very own Isaac Feldberg has, and you can check out his review right here to see what he thought of it.
