Greek mythology has been trashed in so many goofy movies for decades that it’s only right that the Egyptian equivalent should finally get similar treatment. This extraordinarily silly, flamboyantly empty hodgepodge of splashy effects and childish narrative from the writers of “Dracula Untold” and “The Last Witch Hunter” and the director of “Knowing” and “I, Robot” certainly fills the bill—so well, in fact, that it pretty much balances the scales all on its own. It’s actually dumber than “Immortals,” with which it shares a considerable number of narrative beats.

Taking advantage of the rich panoply of Egyptian deities, Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless have cobbled together a scenario set during the time they supposedly inhabited Egypt as the masters of the humans who were about half their size. The beneficent king of fertility Osiris (Bryan Brown) has been given the lush land irrigated by the Nile by his father, the sun god Ra (Geoffrey Rush), while his brother, the warlike Set (Gerard Butler) received the desert. At the ceremony in which Osiris intends passing on the kingship to his son Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), the god of the air, Set invades the land, killing his brother and blinding his nephew before sending him into exile. Set then rules with an iron fist, ordering master builder Urshu (Rufus Sewell) to construct a huge tower in honor of Ra, using the humans as slave labor.

One of the workers is Bek (Brenton Thwaites), a handsome young thief in the mold of Disney’s Aladdin. His beloved is Zaya (Courtney Eaton), who keeps Urshu’s files in order. She’s devout, always hoping that Horus will return to free them from Set’s tyranny, but Bek is dismissive of her beliefs. He nonetheless decides to use the information from Urshu’s blueprints to break into Set’s treasure chamber and steal the eyes of Horus, though he only finds one of them there. Unfortunately Urshu discovers the theft, and during the couple’s attempt to escape Zaya is mortally wounded. Bek arrives at Horus’ refuge with an offer: he’ll give Horus the single eye he’s pilfered and help him seek vengeance on Set, if Horus will raised Zaya from the dead—something that must be done before she reaches the gate of the underworld that leads to either the afterlife or oblivion, depending on how much the departed has to offer as tribute.

So the two are off on a series of adventures designed to reduce Set’s powers, increase Horus’ vitality, and save Zaya from obliteration. They involve pitched battles with CGI creatures of many sorts and sizes, confrontations with the snarling Set, desperate chases and innumerable hair’s-breadth escapes, as well as assorted encounters with other gods, including Thoth, the god of wisdom—or in this case pure pedantry (Chadwick Boseman); Hathor (Elodie Yung); and Anat (Abbey Lee). They even visit the celestial realm of Ra, who engages in a nightly battle with a demonic cloud that threatens to swallow up his creation.

One of the more likable qualities of “Gods of Egypt” is that it maintains a generally lighthearted tone, mostly courtesy of the ebullient Bek’s incessant quips. (Of course, their contemporary expression pretty much destroys any period sense.) And Proyas exhibits a ridiculous degree of commitment to the material, generally keeping things moving even though they seem to be going nowhere. On the negative side, the avalanche of computer-generated images has a deadening effect, especially since they’re often employed to turn the movie into the big-screen equivalent of a video game. Any resemblance to a real human being is tossed out the window, for instance, in the scene of Bek’s break-in at Set’s treasury, where brief shots of the actor are intercut with plastic-looking simulacra of him as the character avoids Urshu’s supposedly unbeatable traps. Whenever the cast interacts with the CGI, in fact (whether backgrounds or critters), it’s not done appreciably better than what Ray Harryhausen accomplished more than half a century ago with his stop-motion animation. The 3D doesn’t help, either, often giving the visuals a distorted, out-of-focus feel. That, along with the burnished color palette favored by production designer Owen Paterson and cinematographer Peter Menzies, Jr., Nicki Gardiner’s ostentatious set decoration and Liz Keogh’s equally florid costumes, and the frequent bursts of blinding light, often makes the movie an eyesore and an endurance test. A constantly blaring score by Marco Beltrami adds to the sense of overkill.

Within the totally artificial context, the actors are little more than pawns moved about as needed. Thwaites is a genial presence, but little more. At that, however, he’s a relief from Coster-Waldau’s dull sternness and Butler’s scenery-chewing villainy. Rush, looking a bit like an underfed Uncle Fester, is about as subtle as he was in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” while Sewell, who’s worked with Proyas before, is a snarling bore. In fact, the most amusing turn comes from Boseman, who brings mountains of prissiness to the literally multifaceted Thoth.

Of course, his presence raises the controversy about “Gods of Egypt” that’s become a cause célèbre—the fact that the casting isn’t appropriately ethnic. Seeing the picture, however, makes one wonder whether being in it is—or would be—a positive item on anybody’s resume. It might enthrall boys under seven, but everyone over that age is likely to laugh it off the screen.

It has a chance, however, of becoming a camp classic.