Immortals

There are some trailers which automatically catch your eye and Immortals is one of them.  I absolutely love anything based in Greek mythology and the trailer gave the impression that Immortals had potential but I have to admit that I was nervous…..

PLOT: After winning the epic battle between the Olympians and the Titans, Zeus (Luke Evans) locks the Titans inside the All Spark a cage in Mount Tartaros and hides, rather than destroys the Epirus Bow, a weapon capable of releasing the Titans and destroying the earth.  King Hyperon (Mickey Rourke) leads his barbed wire hat wearing army on a rampage in order to seek out the Bow.  The fate of mankind falls to Theseus (Henry Cavill) a young warrior trained by a disguised Zeus (John Hurt).  Theseus searches for the Bow.  Theseus finds the Bow.  Theseus drops the Bow.  Theseus finds the Bow, only to drop it again and have it stolen by a dog.  Hyperon marches to the Gates of Mordor Mount Tartaros and releases the Titans and the epic battle begins once more.  END PLOT

As Immortals is based in Greek mythology the plot had oodles to draw from yet it still fell flat.  This is mostly due to pacing as scenes seemed to drag for an extraordinary amount of time.  There were occasions when we were screaming at the screen for Henry Cavill to take of his shirt and do something!  As we were the only people in the screening cinema etiquette went out the window and we had to make our own fun.

Henry Cavill was grand as Theseus and whenever he took off his shirt he was a more than capable lead.  Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff and the gorgeous Freida Pinto were all fine but no one particularly stood out.

I was involved in a conversation before seeing the film with Mr Hernandez about the omission of the Gods in Troy.  They play such an important role in The Iliad but I think their inclusion in the film would only have made Troy more bloated than it already was. 

The Gods have a fairly decent role in Immortals however their big showdown with the Titans was reduced to a messy CGI sword fight between Poseidon, Athena and a couple of dusty looking Titans.  Essentially all the build up came to nothing.

Immortals ended with a “next time on the Immortals” so if there is a sequel we can expect a lot more action up on Mount Olympus but from what I have seen of the Gods so far I am not overly impressed.  They weren't fleshed out at all with only Poseidon getting one small moment to show off.  I didn’t like the cheap looking gold outfits or the outrageously flamboyant headgear either. 

I have no idea why it is so hard to include Greek Gods in a film that isn’t animated.  The chance of me ever getting to see Dawn and all the imagery associated with her is very slim.  It is devastating that the Gods cannot be given a decent portrayal on the big screen.    

The action was grand although there was no jaw dropping moment in the film.  This isn’t a slight against the usage of CGI as the film was visually stunning but it just lacked that big set piece to give it the epic feel it was obviously aiming for.

I’ve read my Greek classics several times (God Bless the lunch hour) so I can’t help myself by deploying full snob mode and demanding more from this genre.  Immortals is flawed but aside from some questionable pacing it is a decent film which definitely deserves a look on the big screen.  It gets a 6.5/10.  It will be interesting to see if this does well enough financially to warrant another instalment.  

 *sigh*