Sue Lukenbaugh | Wikimedia Commons
By Sarah George
Contributor
The producers of “300” have brought audiences a new bloody but unfortunately not nearly as awesome, battle story with “Immortals.”
The brutal King Hyperion (played by Mickey Rourke, who won a Golden Globe for his role in “The Wrestler”) is after the lost bow of Epirus. With this bow of invincibility, he plots to conquer the gods of Olympus and win immortality.
Henry Cavill (of Showtime’s “The Tudors”) plays an unmarried stoneworker named Theseus who lives in a small village.
Raised by Zeus disguised as an old man, (played by John Hurt of “V for Vendetta”) Theseus is skilled in the art of combat, and gets into many fights to defend his family’s honor.
Through a series of raids in search of the bow, Hyperion comes across Theseus’ village and murders his mother. Theseus vows to avenge his mother’s death and stop Hyperion’s massacre of humanity.
After being captured by Hyperion, he comes across an oracle named Phaedra (played by Frieda Pinto of “Slumdog Millionaire”) and she prophesies that Theseus will gain control over the bow of Epirus. Her prediction is that as bow-holder and eventually even the ally of Hyperion, Theseus is the solution to defeating Hyperion and his army. Theseus and a small band of followers then begin an impulsive battle to save the face of humanity.
“Immortals” was a very difficult movie to watch for a number of reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, it is extremely gory, so this is not a film to take a family or young children to go see. Few people will be able to get past the sheer amount of gore in the film.
Many action movies made recently have seen their downfall through poor editing choices or because of the audiences’ inability to have enough time to connect with the characters. I fear that occasionally directors lose sight of the point of movie making. Instead of storytelling, they choose to substitute for it with high-grossing action scenes.
Presented in 3D, “Immortals” had around $80 million for a budget. It cost more than half of that again just to market the film, meaning that this film needs to do well at the box office in order to turn a profit.
Unfortunately, not enough of the money was spent on the story development or script. While the story itself was interesting, the long sequence of events left the audience unable to root for one side or the other. I found myself sitting in anticipation, hoping only that the movie would soon end.
About 10 percent was dialogue and actual story, 10 percent was Theseus’ abdominal muscles, and the other 80 percent was made up of fight scenes.
I don’t know about you, but I can only watch so many decapitations and bloody battles before I begin to get bored. I know it’s hard to believe, but that’s how much gore is actually in this film.
This film’s producers actually did make an effort in visuals. In that aspect, “Immortals” was a true success. The production design was beautiful in each scene, even the ones with decapitated heads flying around all over the place.
My advice is that if you are going to see this movie, see it in 3D because the visuals are fantastic, but only if you really feel the need to or you just like violence.
Unfortunately, “Immortals” is worth seeing, because of any of the film’s other aspects are worth the price of admission. If you don’t want to spend the extra money for a 3D ticket, I’ve heard “Puss and Boots” is pretty entertaining, so maybe you’d just be better off seeing that.
Reviews in the Lariat represent only the viewpoint of the reviewer and not necessarily those of the rest of the staff. Please send comments to lariat@baylor.edu.
