Immortals (2011)

Oooooooooh sooo shinnnyyy.

In Ancient Greece, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) searches for a powerful weapon that will free the bloodthirsty Titans and enable them to overpower the gods and enslave mankind. Unable to interfere directly, the gods choose a champion to defend them: Theseus (Henry Cavill). Theseus gathers a ragtag band of warriors, including priestess Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and slave Stavros (Stephen Dorff), to meet the challenge.

Director Tarsem Singh is not a dude I know very well when it comes to his films but from what I know they are beautiful. This is one of those cases here.

The great aspect Singh brings to this film is that everything here is filmed with these bright and vibrant colors that are mixed in with these sets. Some are CG and some are actually real, but either way, everything here just looks beautiful and filmed with this style that almost reminds me of a painting of some sorts that I would see on the ceiling of a church. Probably one of the best looking films of the year and another reason for me to actually go out there and look at this dudes movies.

However, as my 4th grade teacher would always tell me, “beauty is only skin-deep”, which is sadly the case for this film. The problem with this film is that the writing is so generic and lame that nothing seems to really stand-out other than the beautiful colors and ass-kicking action. These characters talk as if they were straight out of a ‘300‘ sequel and there’s no real emotional drive to this film that makes you root for these “people” as they go on and fight the big war.

Also, I never understood just what the hell was up Hyperion. Hyperion wants to wage this huge war on the Gods but he never has a big enough reason and when he does finally say it, I couldn’t take it as that seriously. It could have been fleshed out a bit more, through maybe a flashback here and there but instead was just left in the air. Oh yeah, the reason why he starts the war with the Gods is because his wife and kids die from a disease/sickness. Makes perfect sense, right?

There are also parts to this film where everything seems to drag on and on to the point of where you just want somebody to do something effin’ crazy. All of those epic and intense battle sequences you see from the trailers and everything, is here, but at the end of the film when the rest of it is just about these 3-5 people going after Hyperion. It’s not like the whole film is boring it’s just that the slow parts, seemed to drag on so much more because of the action being as great as it is.

Speaking of the action, it’s freakin’ awesome. Everything is shot so colorfully that the mix of blood and gore fully makes this film a fun treat, especially when the action starts to get bigger, louder, and a lot more epic. You don’t have the normal slow-mo sequences that almost every action director tries to do nowadays, which gives you time to enjoy all of the men spearing, beheading, pulverizing, impaling a whole lot more at a quick and fast pace. When the action happens, it’s fun, bloody, and stylish the problem is that it just happens after some very long periods of dragging.

The real spectacle this film is also trying to high-light is the big-screen U.S. debut of Henry Cavill who plays Theseus, and is also going to be playing Superman. He does what he can with this script and I think he really does have what it takes to be a great Superman because he just has that physically strong and heroish man look to him that will win anybody over.

Mickey Rourke is also having a lot of fun as the baddy, King Hyperion aka the guy who is eating something in almost every scene. It’s awesome to see Rourke having a fun time with a role that he could play for more and more decades to come. Stephen Dorff is good as the comic relief and kick-ass warrior, Stavros, and Freida Pinto is kind of mute and just not doing anything as the “virgin priestess”, Phaedra.

Consensus: Visionary director Tarsem Singh brings so many colorful, vibrant, beautiful, and larger-than-life sets to this film that it almost makes Immortals feel like some sort of dream filled with bloody and fun action, but also a lame script and long moments of boredom in between all of the slashing and killing.

6.5/10=Rental!!