Gods of Egypt

In a conspicuously pale-skinned ancient Egypt, 10-foot tall, shape-shifting deities walk amongst the mortals. Favored son and ribald god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) prepares to ascend to the throne when he’s maimed and exiled by his father’s power-mad brother Set (Gerard Butler); meanwhile, a resourceful human thief (Brenton Thwaites) tries to retrieve his dead wife from the underworld. Smeary, cartoonish, largely unimaginative CGI special effects wash over every single shot of director and co-writer Alex Proyas’ dopey spectacular, while the performances are a bizarre mixed bag. Butler is crazy bad as the villainous Set, and it feels like Thwaites’ mop-topped thief wandered in from a community theater performance of Xanadu, but Geoffrey Rush was born to play Ra, the Egyptian sun god. The film is so ridiculously awful that it threatens to bend back into compelling camp, but the end result is just too excruciating to be entertaining. D.B.