Gods of Egypt was a big budget bomb with dodgy CGI

REVIEW: How the heck did this epic fail of the epic Gods of Egypt get a whopping green light, and a $195 million budget?

This image released by Lionsgate shows Gerard Butler portraying Set in a scene from "Gods of Egypt." (Lionsgate via AP)

Gods Of Egypt (M)

Director: Alex Proyas (The Crow)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Bryan Brown, Geoffrey Rush.

Rating: *

Knuckleheads in de Nile

How the heck did this epic fail of an epic get a whopping green light, and a $195 million budget?

Every dodgily-CGI’d last bit of it is a huge red stop sign, amounting to roughly $1.95 of entertainment value.

Imagine a crummy Clash Of the Titans clone, relocated to an up-market men’s-mag version of Ancient Egypt, where the tanning salons and smile-brightening clinics appear to have done a roaring trade.

How ancient is this Ancient Egypt? Does your calendar go all the back to that time the movie calls “before history began”? Didn’t think so.

A weird story tracks the movements of a bunch of oversized gods. They’re forever butting heads and befriending buxom babes, while scarpering to fill a power vacuum left by an absentee supreme deity.

Courtney Eaton and Brenton Thwaites in a scene from Gods of Egypt. Picture: Lisa Tomasetti/Lionsgate via AP

Or something along those lines. It really doesn’t matter. After two hours of this guff, the whole thing has put a hole in your mind the size of a Sphinx.

How oversized can a god from Egypt be? According to the screenwriters, about a metre-and-a-half higher than your average mere mortal.

These buff brawlers have catchy names like Bek, Set, Ra, Thoth and Horus, and do well not to knock their big fat heads when using regulation Cairo doorways. These goofy giants also mount a convincing argument that bigger is in no way better.

Stars of Gods Of Egypt include all of your favourite Egyptian-looking actors like Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Bryan Brown and Geoffrey Rush.

Yes, Geoffrey Rush. If you have any trouble finding him, he’s the dude with the faux-hawk and the ponytail who shows up in a spaceship.