For some reason film producers love making movies about ancient Greece and the various gods associated with it. This may be because actors like to run around in little skirts while swinging big swords and spears, an image that would make Dr. Freud have a field day. Or it might be that audiences like watching said scantily clad men kill other scantily clad men in big slow motion battles. Whatever the reason, producers have made another one called “Immortals,” which adds very little to film as a whole.
King Hyperion (played by Mickey Rourke, “Iron Man 2”) is marching a badly dressed army across the ancient world. The army is looking for a magical bow that can release the evil titans, a group of monsters that can kill the ancient gods for King Hyperion because they stole his idea for wearing a big ridiculous hat.
While on his little rampage, the king raids a little village where Theseus (Henry Cavill, “The Tudors”) lives with his mother. Rourke kills mommy and Cavill goes on a quest to avenge her while picking up a band of quirky friends along the way. One of them is a beautiful virgin seer played by Freida Pinto (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). They fall in love and have their very own nude scene.
The film is a Frankenstein-type monster made from parts of other, better movies. The style is reminiscent of “300” with the slow motion, short skirt fight scenes. It is just like any grand adventure movie made in the last 10 years except for the sex and the costumes look like someone raided a heavy metal costume party.
Sometimes mixing classic pieces can create a new and unique experience, but this is not the case in “Immortals.” It has the feeling of mixing different brands of oatmeal together to create a new color of grey.
The only truly unique piece of the film is how unforgivingly gory it is. Outside of the “300”-style fight scenes, the film happily features people being cooked inside a giant metal cow, a man cutting off his own tongue and castration by mallet. These things are pretty visceral, but unlike in “Saw,” they just don’t flow well with the rest of the film. It’s like watching “Snow White” and every half hour watching a “Walking Dead” webisode.
The sad thing is that the film wanted to be a grand epic adventure but just failed. It’s akin to a little 5-year-old who wants to be like his high school brother so bad that he swipes his keys and rams the car into the living room. A nice try, but it just didn’t come together in the end.
“Immortals” is rated R for extreme violence and nudity.
