Gods of Egypt

While not an outright disaster, this is still as massively perplexing a misfire as any likely to see a release this year.

ny picture featuring Geoffrey Rush channelling King Lear as the patriarch god Ra while flying about in a spaceship can't be all bad.

The fantasy film Gods of Egypt does practically everything wrong, from its whitewashed cast to its irredeemably goofy storyline. What a waste.

A raspy voiceover man (Lindsay Farris) announces authoratively that we are about to witness the story of the Egyptian gods... "From what I recall it goes something like this." What? Did he just say that?

Unprecedentedly violent and incomparably preposterous.

The film doesn't just play fast and loose with mythology, it also besmirches the cinematic legacy that precedes it - chiefly, the inventive ancient Greek special effects creations of Ray Harryhausen.

It meanders through waves of lame character interactions, mind-numbing fight sequences, uninspired creatures, and boring plot contrivances.

Summit Entertainment's absurdly staged sword and sandal epic features a laughably silly script, derivative plotting and, despite no established audience or recognized source material on which it's based, boasts a hefty price tag of 140 million.

Read the incredibly descriptive Wikipedia entry and call it a day.

When even the human characters are impervious to peril, there's never really any suspense.