Director: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto and John Hurt
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Synopsis: Theseus is a mortal man chosen by Zeus to lead the fight against the ruthless King Hyperion, who is on a rampage across Greece to obtain a weapon that can destroy humanity.
IMMORTALS boasts quite the cast, with the likes of future Superman Henry Cavill, John Hurt, Freida Pinto and Mickey Rourke all lining up to star in Tarsem Singh’s first film since THE FALL. Remember that one? No, me neither – it was released back in 2006 (FYI). The India-born director’s previous flick to that was 2000’s THE CELL, the visual feast that starred Jennifer Lopez, but it was interesting to read on the mighty IMDB that he directed the India segments of THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. We’ve also had quite a bit of time to digest IMMORTALS, with our press screening taking place more than two weeks ago and I was personally hoping that the film would grow on me after leaving the auditorium. Sadly not.
I really wanted to like IMMORTALS as I’m a huge fan of the genre. 300 was the first HD-DVD that I bought (backed the wrong horse in the home HD market), and I have since snapped it up on Blu-Ray. I love everything about it; director Zack Snyder’s CGI visuals, washboard fronted men, the mythical element and over the top gore, all of which are present here in IMMORTALS. The problem is that it is just soooooooo boring.
A few months back, we were shown a superb little battle scene at the Empire Big Screen, and for me it was one of the highlights of the show. I thought to myself after seeing it: ‘Wow, I can’t wait to see this movie. It’s kick ass, it’s gory, it’s man-on-man high octane over the top gods and monsters fun. It’s going to be…. excellent!’ It’s everything but. True, there are a few fun scenes, the first of which follows a brutal attack on one of the lead characters at the beginning of the film in which Cavill’s character Theseus goes on a gung-ho rampage and takes out a series of bad guys, and then there’s that aforementioned scene that I had previously caught at Empire’s big show in the Summer. Besides that, I found most of IMMORTALS pretty uninspiring. Freida Pinto’s character, and indeed one of the only females in the film, is largely disposable and her motives completely unbelievable. Cavill as Theseus looks good, granted, but doesn’t bring enough heart to the character that he plays. He’s okay and actually delivers a reasonable performance, but you watch it and you think that you’re just watching his warm up film for the ultimate superhero role to come (I have no idea as to whether his MAN OF STEEL role was confirmed as he worked on this, and am not inferring anything in any way). Luke Evans (Zeus) and the rest of the gods, played by the likes of Kellen Lutz (Poseidon)and Isabel Lucas (Athena), are not only visually ridiculous, but just wrong in every other way possible too, and then there’s John Hurt, who book-ends the film, who is simply just not in it enough… As for Mickey Rourke? Well, here he plays Hyperion, who basically wants to bring the world to its knees. He relishes his role as the bad guy, and almost hams it up in the role. For me, he’s the best part of the film and is clearly having a whale of a time playing with the mumbling villain with a penchent for thumping men in the groin with a large Thor-like hammer.
In IMMORTALS, I found the violence completely over the top, not in a good way, and largely unneccesary, especially towards the end. The 3D is, once again in a swords and sandals epic, completely unneccesary, and the visuals in general a bit…meh. I was hugely let down and felt almost wounded as I left the cinema. It could have been so much, but unfortunately IMMORTALS fails to deliver on almost every level.
IMMORTALS opens in cinemas on 11th November 2011.
