Gods of Egypt

The campaign has been relentless. It has spanned years and continents with more defeats than victories and no end in sight. And as the seasons pass, millions huddle in the dark and ask themselves the same question: when will Hollywood give up this lark of trying to turn Gerard Butler into a bona fide box office bigwig? They can bang on desks and curse the punters all they like but it's not happening, and it's at the stage now where you feel like writing to the Scotsman to tell him that you liked 300 and RocknRolla but he needs to go off and have his own McConaissance in smaller, edgier stuff. If the weather, a warped sense of fun or want-to-go younger viewers force you into ponying up for Gods of Egypt bring pen and paper to get your thoughts together and help pass the time.

Butler, looking like he was trapped under a sunbed so long as to induce psychosis in dermatologists, plays the villain, Set. He has seized power from Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, slumming it as hero Horus. Both men are miscast - but that's the least of Gods of Egypt's problems. So huge is the cheese mountain here, in fact, that a reappraisal of Warcraft may be in order.

From the get-go the CGI is hokey, the sets look as shiny and plastic as dayglo lunch boxes and the very important Bracelet of 42 Stones can be dated back to Apollo One on Moore Street circa 1986. The blocks of exposition and dreadful dialogue dwarf the pyramids with lines delivered in plumminess worthy of gramophone recordings circa 1915. Admittedly, there are some treasures worth taking home - "In one-thousand years of peace what have you achieved?", "Get off your arse!" and 'Oh bother..." being three of the best. Where's Flash Gordon's Brian Blessed when you really need him?

Return yourself to the mind of a seven- or eight-year-old and Gods of Egypt's action sequences are diverting but not even in the same universe as the as-good-second-time-around Captain America: Civil War. Under or over the aforementioned age group proceedings will feel too scary or just too meh. Adults whose formative experiences included the original Clash of the Titans, Gladiator and 300 will marvel (no pun intended) at how things could go so wrong. It's a truly chilling thing to say, but every actor here needs to think a bit more of themselves.