By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Commercial and music video director Tarsem reinvents the ancient Greek Theseus myth in Immortals, featuring rugged Brit star Henry Cavill (the new Superman) and coming from the same producer, Mark Canton, who revitalized the Sword & Sandal genre with 300.
THE SKINNY: Jettisoning any actual Greek mythology from his story, Tarsem repurposes Theseus’ ancient heroics into a violent, vacuous cross-cultural mash-up for the video game/UFC generation – a stylized ballet of severed limbs, senseless plot devices and wild costuming. Immortals – which likely deserved an X rating – is a film neither for the faint of heart, nor the lively of mind.
WHAT WORKS: • Although the film’s costumes and production design – which extravagantly blend North African, Indian, Persian and occasionally even some Greek influences – make little sense in the context of the story, they bring a visual novelty to the film that grabs one’s attention. The garb of the Olympian gods, and the armor of the Titans, deserve special praise.
• Years of bizarre behavior and dissipated living have made Mickey Rourke into a good hire to play a wicked tyrant. His King Hyperion, who bears no connection to any Theseus myth I’m aware of, is nonetheless a formidable and interesting villain – a kind of Colonel Kurtz of the ancient world, decked out in bronze bunny ears. As an interesting side note, the disjointed terrain of Rourke’s face has begun to resemble a Paul Klee painting – fascinating to look at (particularly in 3D), even for long spells of time.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK: • Having drained the story of any meaningful connection to Greek mythology or history (which, one assumes, he finds dull), Tarsem has nowhere to go with the Theseus story excerpt to turn it into a generic, head-chopping ‘hero’s journey’ like a thousand similar films before it. Immortals, trite in the extreme, shows less respect to the core cannon of Greek myth than your average comic book movie shows toward comic book lore.
• Outside of Mickey Rourke, Immortals features not a single noteworthy performance – including those of Henry Cavill and Freida Pinto, who make for a handsome but pitifully dull couple. And although Luke Evans is passable as a young Zeus, the rest of the Olympian gods are almost laughable, like something out of a high school performance of Godspell.
• Immortals has way too much violence. The film revels in gore and sadism.
• The film is almost totally lacking in humor, and its one perfunctory attempt at romance is handled lamely. In fact, the big love scene between Cavill and Pinto actually drew laughter in the theater I was in, perhaps because Tarsem inexplicably cut to a static close-up of Pinto’s posterior (in 3D, no less) during what was supposed to be the couple’s big moment of tenderness. Memo to Tarsem: there’s nothing romantic about a can when its 30 feet high, not even Ms. Pinto’s.
THE BOTTOM LINE: Don’t walk into this labyrinth unless your ready to be gored. Immortals is precisely what it appears to be: a cynical cash-in on the far better 300, a film that broke new ground in action style and made Sword & Sandal fare relevant to the War on Terror era. Immortals is relevant to nothing other than perhaps Fashion Week in Jakarta – or Tarsem’s ongoing effort to be taken seriously, on the order of more esteemed directors such as, say, McG.
Posted on November 13th, 2011 at 5:01pm.
When will the Hollywood knuckleheads learn not to mess with stories that have stood the test of time. Movies faithful to the story or mythology, for example Excalibur, original Clash of the Titans and 300 success. Hollywood butcher jobs like Immortals, and First Knight failure.
Agreed. There are so many fascinating storylines associated with the Theseus myth, and they chose none of them! Plus, they completely botched the Minotaur. He was just some big guy wearing a bull helmet, and the labyrinth itself was ill-defined. The whole thing was a mess.
When I saw one of the screen shots here of the Immortals “Minotaur” I knew this movie was a big stinker. It looked like some dude in a Comic Con costume.
That’s not far from the truth. What’s peculiar about the film is that they give you gods, but no supernatural creatures. It doesn’t make much sense.
So… so.. this is a vague Greek themed film then? You have to wonder what the script writer (or director or editor) had against Greek mythology. I mean, it’s filled with drama, love, comedy, and violence without having to do any changes. The nice thing about Greek mythology is you can change things around a bit and still have a half-way passable story. o_0
Thanks, Draw, that’s precisely the point. Anyone acquainted with those old stories knows how rich they are with subject matter for the movies. In the 1950s and early 1960s, for example, the Italian film industry (and much of the American film industry) subsisted on an endless diet of such stories.
My sense is that decades of political correctness has blunted the appeal of the ancient Greek myths for younger imaginations. It’s a shame.
You didn’t mention John Hurt, I quite enjoyed his performance. And your comments about Mickey and the bum confirm that my decision to see the 2D version was the correct one.
As a avid reader of Mythology in my youth, that the story behind this movie was created out of whole cloth was obvious. But thats OK, its a lot like FanFic, taking characters you love and going to town with them. A mad and powerful king who intends to ensure his fame or infamy by personally impregnating every women who bares the children of the future generations shows ambition, or at least optimism. Likewise his plans for the Titians.
So I’m afraid I have to confess to having enjoyed the film. One point you didn’t comment on, the sets and CGI. I thought that worked, better than “300”. Perhaps thats just the march of technology, but it looked stunning.
Thanks for your thoughts, John. A few responses:
• I wasn’t impressed by Hurt’s performance. I normally like him, but here he seemed to be phoning it in.
• I agree with you that the essentially ‘synthetic’ character of King Hyperion was not a bad idea; he’s ambitious and interesting in old-fashioned ways, and Rourke was up to the challenge.
• The 3D added nothing to the experience. It was a post-production job, not very well done.
• I was underwhelmed by the sets, actually (the costumes I liked, though), and the stage-bound/CGI approach was limiting, in my opinion. The film felt vaguely claustrophobic – I never felt like anybody was really out in nature. There was no real sunlight, wind, dust, etc. Also: the terrain had nothing to do with how Greece actually looks, having personally visited there. All of this gave the film a sterile, artificial quality – enhanced all the more by the jettisoning of any actual Greek mythology.
I’d love to visit Greece someday and see several areas to compare them to some of the films I’ve enjoyed, but what will I use for money?
And lastly, the other film that opened in my area last weekend was “Jack and Jill”, I don’t regret my choice.
By the way, I greatly enjoy your site.
Thanks, John, and I hope you make it someday to Greece! Especially since they’ve cleaned up the smog.
Perhaps the costs to travel will fall as the Greece economy collapses if you don’t mind the whiff of tear gas in Athens or the Germans owning the title to the Acropolis. 🙂
The Acropolis is for sale? Wow. That’s sad. I hope it doesn’t become a hotel.