Tut 4/10
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3214310/
This is about king Tut's life, who we don't actually know much about, so the creators had plenty of creative freedom. But they made him into a warrior king who fought side-by-side with his troops. That goes against everything we know about ancient royalty. Also, he had a limp and a cleft pallet. We know that from the genetic evidence. But I'll let that slide. It is minor grievances. I'm a history nerd. I care about such stuff in historical dramas. I've had a long love affair with ancient Egypt.
The sets are gorgeous. I have no complaints about the production values. Ben Kingsley as Ay (grand vizier) is a perfect match. They could not have found a better actor for it. Nonso Anozie plays general Horemheb, who was, apparently was a giant of a man in every regard. Egypts most feared and respected man. He plays that role perfectly. But that's where the positives end.
Tut himself is not an interesting character. It's boring to see a super-hero of a king with almost no internal struggles to overcome. Sure, it was a little bit about him trying to assert himself as a man after his advisors had ruled in his name when he was a boy. That could have been great. But he did all this in the space of ten mintes in a six hour mini-series that should have been about nothing else IMHO. That's the "meat" of this story any viewer will be able to relate to. Also... the actor playing Tut... crap. Avan Jogia. The worst possible pick for Tut. He never hit the mark in any scene IMHO. He under- or overplayed whatever he did. But he wasn't the worst actor. Alexander Siddig (Dr Bashir in ST DS9) played the high priest of Amun. He made it look like amateur night. So embarrassingly sucky acting. Didn't the director see it happening as they were filming!?! I felt embarrassed while watching him do it.
We do know that the conspiracies at court were a mess at the time and they did fight a stale-mate of a war with the Mittani empire. Both which are excellent material for any script writer. But I didn't think they used it well. They overplayed the drama and made it cartoonish. The young king slipping out at night and developing a romance with a woman from an enemy empire is just too silly. It just becomes ridiculous. Those scenes, when we get to see Egyptian commoners life, is not believable. It looks and feels like people LARPing. The effect is comedic. They did use the thing where Tut was married to his own sister. But they didn't really play it out well. They do feel like brother and sister, which was good, but they didn't really do much else with it.
I was disappointed how they cut out the Amarna period completely for this film. Tut's father had created a massive social shift in society and caused great havoc. All the nobles and priests were nervous about this for when Tut became an adult. This was the reason for all the court intrigue. This wasn't even mentioned once. I understand that a film has limited time and resources and things need to be omitted. But I wanted it!
To sum up, they had all the pieces there and the money to do a good job, it just fell apart in the end. It doesn't really matter how good actors Kingsley or Anozie are if they are playing off a crappy actor they won't be able to save it. I desperately wanted to love it, but I didn't.
