Immortals
DIRECTED BY TARSEM SINGH
Immortals, a green-screen Greek epic from eye-candy savant Tarsem Singh, is literally head-explodingly gorgeous (or gaudy, depending on your tolerance for ostentatious CGI). It’s also credibly interpreted as a righteous, right-wing call to arms—though to delve into the subtext of this body butter-smeared 3D extravaganza is surely to think harder than intended. In truth, Immortals aims to offer the same visceral satisfaction as the ultraviolent, hugely popular PlayStation franchise God of War, an ambition mirrored by the project’s previous title, War of the Gods.
Like Sony’s hack ‘n’ slash stalwart, Immortals is loosely inspired by classical mythology, pitting the peasant hero Theseus (Henry Cavill) against King Hyperion (a monstrously sadistic Mickey Rourke) in a race to claim the Epirus Bow, a legendary weapon with the power to unleash the Titans against humanity. With the hard-bodied gods forbidden to intervene, Theseus enlists the aid of a noble monk (Greg Bryk), a brazen rogue (Stephen Dorff), and a comely clairvoyant priestess (Frieda Pinto), completing a cast of stock archetypes that could pull double duty in the party of an 8-bit RPG. While it’s most reminiscent of Kratos’ bellicose adventures (down to one of its warring gods wielding a flaming chain), Immortals is actually like a lot of video games, in that its story is a token pretext to string together some spectacular, blood-spattered set pieces.
As such, Tarsem’s customary hyper-painterly aesthetic (achieved with the aid of his collaborator on The Cell, Tom Foden) is the true star of show, complemented by balletic, surprisingly brutal action choreography. As in 300, its obvious cinematic forefather, Immortals captures stylized sword-and-sandle skirmishes in semi-suspended bullet time, but Tarsem at least uses the obligatory technique to emphasize the lightning reflexes of Zeus and his kin when their non-interventionism inevitably lapses. And even at more earthly speeds, Immortals boasts plenty of money shots, with a particularly impressive intricate sequence of real-time cut-and-thrust from Cavill early in the film.
The post-converted 3D, though, is entirely superfluous and is as bland and shallow as the film’s characters. If the notion of Immortals‘ savagely frivolous spectacle appeals, we recommend a less costly 2D screening. Thanks to the thumbs of the merciless Rourke, an eye-popping experience remains guaranteed.