Category: Sword & Sandal Report!

By Jason Apuzzo. • In the time since our last Sword & Sandal Report!, trailers have been released for Immortals and also for the new version of Conan. I’ll start with the Immortals trailer. What a disappointment! As much as I love the concept of building a film around the ancient Greek hero Theseus, slayer of the Minotaur and lover of Ariadne, this Tarsem Singh take on the myth is not working for me at all based on what I’m seeing so far in the trailer … a trailer for which the term ‘derivative’ would be an understatement. About halfway through the trailer a title card reads, “From the producers of 300,” which is about as unnecessary a statement as can be imagined given how utterly identical this film looks to 300. In fact, if this film wasn’t being made by the producers of 300, I would’ve recommended they sue for copyright violation, given how close the two films are in terms of their look, styling, costuming and even color palette.

300, however, at least had a perverse/decadent sense of humor about itself, of which – thus far – Immortals seems painfully devoid. The entire Immortals trailer gives us little more than earnest speeches, slo-mo action, mugging at the camera and massed CGI armies. The dialogue sounds dreadful, featuring such chestnuts of profundity as: “To those whom much is given, much is asked.” Wow, really? I’ve never heard that line before! I thought that to those whom much is given, still more could be given – along with a free Starbucks coupon!

As for Mickey Rourke, his physical transformation into The Elephant Man seems complete, which I suppose makes him a good choice as the villain here … provided his character wasn’t wearing bronze bunny ears, and provided his mumbled dialogue was actually comprehensible, which it isn’t. And as for future Superman Henry Cavill, he does nothing for me here – and nor does Freida Pinto, who in her first big Hollywood film already seems to be taking her clothes off. That certainly didn’t take long! Welcome to L.A., young lady – you’ll fit in just fine.

In any case, I’m lowering my expectations for this film, although not to the point that I’ll avoid it altogether. (In other Immortals news, cast member Joseph Morgan discusses his role in the film here.)

• … which brings us to the new Conan the Barbarian trailer. This trailer is slightly better than the one for Immortals in that I actually understand what the story is about (“No man should live in chains …”), it has a more masculine lead (Jason Momoa), war elephants, and Rose McGowan as an insane witch. All good elements. This trailer again features too much CGI for my taste, and music that sounds a little too close to Metallica, but on the whole the film looks less annoying than Immortals. Jason Momoa as Conan is also reminding me a lot of The Rock, which is a good thing.

How will the new Conan rate against the original Schwarzenegger/Milius version? Poorly, I suspect, but it still may be entertaining. The trailer goes on a bit too long, repeating its action sequences, as if the film has little else to offer. That’s a problem. The original Conan got by on a certain amount of cheeky good-humor, based around Arnold’s over-the-top persona. Hopefully they’ve found some way to preserve some of that in this new version. Continue reading Sword & Sandal Report!: Conan, The Immortals, Hercules, Game of Thrones Rock the Pre-Modern World!

By Jason Apuzzo. Today we begin a new feature here at Libertas called The Sword & Sandal Report!, to complement our Invasion Alerts! and Cold War Updates! The Sword & Sandal Report! will cover the recent explosion of new films & TV shows dealing with the ancient world, and especially those depicting the worlds of ancient Greece, Rome and the Biblical lands – but also ‘sword and sorcery’-type projects that cover the Middle Ages, or alternative-style fantasy worlds. So dust off your sandals, grab that Roman-Gladius sword off the wall, strap on your helmet … and ladies, get ready to wear some loose clothing.

Or, as in the case of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Starz, wear no clothing at all!

I’ve always loved sword-and-sandal movies or peplum, particularly of the Italian/Steve Reeves-Hercules variety, but also Hollywood-on-the-Tiber classics like Ben-Hur or Helen of Troy – or fantasy fare like Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts. If the purpose of the cinema is to ‘take us away’ to imaginative lands of the past, where heroes are always larger than life and nobler – and women lovelier and more virtuous (or more wicked and licentious, as your tastes demand) – then these films really accomplish that. In recent years. the peplum has been revived largely by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator from 2000, although the results since that time have admittedly been mixed – with a few hits like Frank Miller’s 300, and quite a few reekers like Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to do The Sword & Sandal Report! for some time, because – when done properly – these films not only convey a wonderful spirit of adventure, fantasy and romance, but they can also be great vehicles for communicating basic ideas about freedom. In fact, it’s often the case in the more modern sword-and-sandal films that the only idea conveyed whatsoever – in the midst of all the dust, carnage and orgiastic sex – is the basic need to fight for one’s freedom, an idea we champion wholeheartedly here at Libertas.

At the same time, sword-and-sandal movies are also an entertaining way to learn about history, even when these films diverge (often drastically) from established fact. And, as in the case of something like The Fall of the Roman Empire or El Cid, sword-and-sandal movies can also be among the more poetic and erudite films you will ever see. So let’s let get started …

• Very big news recently on the sword-and-sandal front was the early rollout of the media campaign for The Immortals, Tarsem Singh’s 3D take on the Theseus myth coming from Universal and Relativity Media in November. The film features Henry Cavill (the new Superman) as Theseus, and also Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, John Hurt and Transformers 2/Red Dawn hottie Isabel Lucas as the goddess Athena. Producer Mark Canton talks about the film here and here, new posters are out for the film here, plus Immortals is already getting the graphic novel treatment (see here), and Tarsem Singh and Isabel Lucas together talk about the film here and here.

Because this is a ‘Tarsem’ movie (he helmed the memorably perverse Jennifer Lopez thriller, The Cell), the early vibe I’m getting on this film is that it could be a hyper-violent, MTV-Zack Snyder-type mess, but we’ll see and I’ll hope for the best. Certainly the benefit of casting Mickey Rourke these days as a villain – in Immortals he plays the wicked King Hyperion of Crete – is that you don’t need to put any extra fright makeup on his face.

• While producing The Immortals, Mark Canton is also apparently prepping the 300 prequel with Zack Snyder and Frank Miller … which was initially going to be called Xerxes, but which is now lacking a title, as the title ‘Xerxes‘ has apparently been dropped. Why? Too many X’s? I think Xerxes is a great title – crisp, simple and dramatic. Were they worried no one would understand that it was a 300 prequel? Here’s hoping they don’t title the film 299 – or, worse yet, Themistocles.

In any case, Canton talks about his enthusiasm for the prequel here, and you can also see a full breakdown of the Xerxes storyline via Frank Miller here. On paper, it looks like the film could be genuinely spectacular.

• Robert Towne (Chinatown) has been hired to write Pompeii, Sony’s four-part miniseries based on the best-selling historical thriller by Robert Harris and produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, among others. Read the details about the project here, and Jeffrey Wells does a nice job of tracking the intriguing similarities between Harris’ Pompeii and Towne’s Chinatown here.

I haven’t read Harris’ Pompeii, although I’ve been to Pompeii itself – an otherworldly ghost town, meticulously preserved since its unearthing – and I’ve read Harris’ Imperium and enjoyed it a great deal. Because Ridley Scott’s involved, expect Pompeii to be big, ponderous, vaguely conspiratorial but otherwise respectable – with a boffo conclusion, as it were.

• Wrath of the Titans, sequel to the godawful remake of Clash of the Titans, has just begun shooting – and you can check out the official plot synopsis of that film here. Wrath was written by a completely different team of screenwriters than the first film, and is being helmed by Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman, so here’s hoping the new film is a lot better than the last. All I ask is that the new film not feature ‘heroic’ pseudo-Islamic suicide warriors (the ‘Djinn’), nor gratuitously insult Indian Hindus, and maybe include a few more women in the cast next time? Just a thought. Actually that’s three thoughts. Continue reading Sword & Sandal Report!: Immortals, Pompeii, Spartacus & The Latest on the ‘300’ Prequel