The M Match-Up: Gerard Butler vs Gerard Butler, Latest Movies News - The New Paper
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The M Match-Up: Gerard Butler vs Gerard Butler

The Scottish actor of 300 fame has two movies - Gods Of Egypt and London Has Fallen - screaming for your attention this week. Which Butler reigns supreme?

Gerard Butler.

The name conjures images of supreme manliness.

The Scottish star of 300 fame has got the facial hair, the abs and the attitude to convincingly portray alpha males of any era - from the blood-soaked olden days to the dystopian future.

This week, Butler has not one, but two thrilling flicks showing here.

In London Has Fallen (opening here Mar 4), he plays Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who must protect the US president (Aaron Eckhart) from a massive terrorist attack in the British capital.

In Gods Of Egypt, which is now showing, he's the deity Set (above), who blinds the rightful king Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and takes over his throne.

So which character is the ultimate incarnation of 46-year-old Butler's off-the-charts virility?


ALPHA MALE POWERS

Banning makes Jason Statham, Liam Neeson and Daniel Craig look like a bunch of pansies. He claims to be made out of "Bourbon and poor choices". The only word in his vocabulary is the F-word. He's unashamedly jingoistic. He's casually cruel. But the main reason he's the ultimate alpha is that when the s*** hits the fan, the US president looks to him for survival.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Set is the god of storms, violence and the desert - alpha as hell. In the movie, Set takes over all of Egypt, along the way winning over the super-hot Love Goddess Hathor (Elodie Yung). Set has a secret plan to increase his power at the expense of the other gods. He even wants his pappy, the Sun God Ra (Geoffrey Rush), to bow down to him.

ROUND ONE: GOD BUTLER

Protecting the president is one thing, being the top god is quite another.


OUTFIT POWERS

As a man's man, Banning doesn't care much about fashion. That said, he looks damn good in secret agent outfits. Black coat, navy blue suit with matching tie and white shirt - there's no man alive who doesn't look good in this sleek ensemble. When you add the extra hotness of Butler, the effect is stunning.

If you saw Butler in 300, you'll know he can rock the classical warrior look. In that game-changing 2007 fantasy flick, he was impressively shirtless, but here, he goes all out with various combinations of chest plates, shoulder protectors, armbands, wristbands, capes and sandals.

ROUND TWO: GOD BUTLER

He just looks so cool in period costumes.


FIGHTING POWERS

Banning doesn't fight fair; he fights to win. Like if he has to hit a guy in the throat with a stick, he's down for that. If he has to stab a dude multiple times during an interrogation, he's okay with it. In the heat of battle, he shoots countless men, and he's made an art out of changing clips in automatic weapons. When he's caught without a weapon, he fights the terrorists mano-a-mano with MMA moves. You can crash his helicopter or crash his car, but you can't crash him.

Set is a brute. He kills his brother and blinds his nephew - two powerful gods in their own right - like it's a walk in the park. When things get dicey, he can level-up into a metallic man-dog. He not only controls a giant army of desert warriors, he also commands two female goddess-warriors who ride around on giant, fire-spitting cobra demons. Set is such a badass he even dares to challenge the Sun God Ra, aka daddy dearest, to a fight.

ROUND THREE: GOD BUTLER

Agent Butler is a tough dude, but he's got no godly superpowers.


THE WINNER: GOD BUTLER

Butler is great in London Has Fallen, but he's better in Gods Of Egypt,where he can let every ounce of his primordial manliness shine through.

 

UncategorisedLondon Has Fallen