Immortals

My viewing of Immortals (in 2D!) will always stick in my mind. Why, I hear you ask? Well, it was the first time I'd been to the cinema where I'd been the only person in the audience. And boy, was it good. I could pick my own seat, right in the middle of the auditorium, with no-one sat in front of me to disrupt my view and no inconsiderately tall person sat behind me, kicking my seat every two minutes. There were no rustling crisp packets, no buckets of over-priced popcorn and no mobile phones constantly vibrating and illuminating the auditorium as if guiding a plane into land. Perfect. If only the film had lived up to this.

Immortals is loosely based on Greek mythological characters, namely Theseus (Henry Cavill) and his struggle against the evil King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). Throw in a few gods, more topless men than you could shake a bottle of baby oil at and you've got yourself Hollywood's answer to Homer's Iliad. Now, I'll start off with the positives. The film, directed by Tarsem Singh, has an unusual visual style which almost works. There's a heavy use of CGI and, whilst it's proficiently executed, it lacked the flair which would have lifted the film up a level. In general, the costumes and sets were interestingly constructed, although the costumes of one or two of the characters looked as if they'd been hired from the Old Vic's Christmas production of Aladdin (and no, this isn't a good thing). The key to any film of this nature is, of course, its action sequences which, I have to say, were paced rather well. The violence in these sequences was graphic, but not totally over-the-top and worked within the context of the narrative. In general, however, the narrative felt slightly disjointed and the action sequences seemed to occur in isolation. Things were not helped by sections of dialogue which could have been written by a primary school child.

The performances were flat and forgettable and even John Hurt seemed to be floundering against a cast which had as much twinkle as a wet sparkler. And then there's Mickey Rourke. As the megalomaniac King Hyperion, his performance is suitably dark but, at times, I found it difficult to understand what he was saying. His trademark 'my-vocal-chords-have-been-attacked-with-a-cheese-grater' voice may have suited the dark character he was portraying but at times it verged on the comedic. But again, his character (along with all the others) lacked a depth or back story which would have made the film all the more enjoyable. Cavill's Theseus was also very two-dimensional and this resulted in an overall absence of empathy towards his predicament. It would seem that the writers bypassed characterisation in favour of muscle.

An obvious point of comparison for this film would be Leterrier's Clash of the Titans or Snyder's 300 (the Immortals poster boasts the same producers as 300). Whilst Immortals lacks the distinctive visual punch of 300, it is certainly comparable in terms of violence. As I've said, I felt the violence in the battle sequences was justified but I was slightly unconvinced by certain scenes in King Hyperion's court. It's interesting to note that the BBFC cut the film at the request of the distributor in order for the film to achieve a 15 rating. In the words of the BBFC, cuts were made to remove 'the bloody focus on a throat being cut, reducing the focus on young women dying, having been burnt...the focus on eye gouging...the shot of a beheading, and reducing some focus on large splashes of blood resulting from characters being killed'. Whilst the cut version is still graphic, I think, contextually, it's much more appropriate. Full marks to the BBFC.

So, my overwhelming feeling towards Immortals? It's as flat as a Yorkshireman's cap and it could have been much tighter, deeper and more emotive. Basically, I sat down on my own, in a deserted cinema, some stuff happened in front of me and I left. That's it. But one thing's for sure: immortal they ain't.

Clapperboard Rating: * *