Dir. Tarsem Singh, 111mins, USA, 2011
Cast: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Frieda Pinto
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Legend tells of a time when swords, sandals, and Greek mythology were the backbone of big-screen entertainment and Ray Harryhausen ruled from upon high with his stop-motion genius. However, the Gods haven’t been kind of late. For all of its technical wizardry, 300 was a vacuous show-off, and the recent Clash of the Titans revamp was a muddle of lowest common denominator set-pieces that only briefly roused its audience.
Director Tarsem Singh has been notable in the past both for the hallucinogenic beauty found in The Cell and The Fall, and also for his frankly bonkers tendency to lose any sense of narrative cohesion in his passion for style. This time he gets to sit atopMountOlympus and orchestrate the chaos of bickering Gods and mortal men.
This is the tale of Theseus (Henry Cavill), famed for his slaying of the Minotaur (a strand that is frustratingly never fully developed here) and favoured by the Gods – Zeus (Luke Evans), Athena (Isabel Lucas), Poseidon (Kellan Lutz), heck, the whole gang’s here – for his defiance of blasphemous megalomaniac, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), a power hungry ruler intent on possessing the all-conquering Epirus bow, made by one of the Gods, that will allow him to release the Titans and become the scourge of humanity.
If Immortals achieves one thing, it’s making you believe that Henry Cavill is absolutely the right choice for Superman, although I’m sure that wasn’t the mission statement of the filmmakers. After allegedly missing out on James Bond and, thankfully, Twilight, this raucously announces him as a leading man. With his classic chiselled features combined with a brilliantly restrained portrayal of the necessarily stoic hero, he never allows it descend into OTT pantomime.
The same cannot be said for the remainder of the cast; Freida Pinto adds to her growing list of inconsequential post-Slumdog roles with a barely fleshed out, yet flesh exposing turn as the mystic Phaedra. Stephen Dorff scarcely registers as a diminutive warrior, intended to be comic relief. The only laughs he generates are at him rather than with him. As for Mickey Rourke, he can do guttural growling in his sleep, so it’s hard to tell whether he’s revelling in the theatrics of it all or he’s interminably bored.
His performance could act as an allegory for the uneven nature of the entire film. Although visually stunning, the fight scenes become repetitive in their aping of Zack Snyder’s over-stylised blood-letting in the aforesaid 300, and the final image is like a ridiculous Michelangelo painting that’s come to life, leaving you in a state of bewildered admiration.
The pacing is also off as the whole thing unfolds way too quickly. The characters, even Theseus, are nothing more than “names” shunted from set-piece to set-piece. It’s as if a Greek mural on the side of a vase has come to life, and, pretty as they all are to look at, you get very little beyond the surface level. Walt Disney’s Hercules had more depth.
Having said that, this is more successful than Clash of the Titans was in incorporating the Gods into the plot mechanics, with Luke Evans making a much more sympathetic Zeus than Neeson’s posturing bore and at least Tarsem has aimed for something quite operatic in style and execution, despite the obvious 300 comparisons.
Definitely a mixed bag, falling prey to the ever present style over content issue that hangs around Singh’s body of work, Immortals is achingly adequate fare.
xx - posted on 23/05/2012 13:13:28
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[...] Immortals (15) | Close-Up Film Review Dir. Tarsem Singh, 111mins, USA, 2011 Cast: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Frieda Pinto Review by Matthew Rodgers Legend tells of a time when swords, sandals, and Greek mythology were the backbone of big-screen entertainment and Ray… Source: http://www.close-upfilm.com [...]