"Simply put, I've never seen anything like the violence in Immortals," writes John Wigler on mtv's "Splash Page." "It's some of the most beautiful violence I've ever witnessed on the big screen." Beautiful violence? I'll let other reviewers tell me what that's supposed to mean. The violence is worse than 300 with people being killed in almost every possible way and many that are impossible. This film is insidiously violent and includes several scenes with female breast nudity including a sexual scene. Women are basically here for the sole purpose of having their virginity taken from them. Basically, you've got good guys and bad guys and the two are going to fight. There is not much resembling a plot here. The problem is that, while 300 had a decent script to go along with its brilliant visuals, Immortals relies solely on its visuals to entertain. Immortals is a silly, very graphic film trying to mimic 300's success. Violent, bloody, hateful, misogynistic, and impossible to recommend except for occasional freeze-frames to be studied in film art class. But without any redeeming message, all of those qualities come off as gilded foil wrapping on a spoiled blood sausage. The film just looks fantastic throughout. There are some impressive action scenes, some interesting special effects, some novel artistic interpretations of Greek images. Heroes are directionless, enemies' motivations are murky, and every scene seems to exist only to bring things inches closer to The Big Battle. While many will complain that it doesn't adhere to Greek mythic tradition, the real problem is that the writing duo can't make us care for any of the characters, and can't figure out what message (if any) the film should convey. The film's biggest problem is with its script. What they didn't do is make it worth watching.
They brought what I expected, and made the film worth looking at. Obviously reminiscent of 300, whose style is already a little old, but I guess I didn't mind so much.īy the way, why the fuck was Stephen Dorff cast in this? He made his character completely awful!! It hurt my ears to be listening to all the vaguely European accents and then suddenly there's Stephen Dorff, who made no effort whatsoever to seem Greek.I went to see this solely for the involvement of director Tarsem and costume designer Eiko Ishioka, to see what these visionaries would bring to a swords & sandals action fantasy. When it comes to the visuals, I won't pretend to know what I am talking about but I did think it was pretty. So yes, the story fell short, which then made the characters suffer, etc. Also, who gives a damn about the humans when there are Gods to fuck shit up (but I guess that's coming in the sequel?). Here's an idea, why don't the writers just use source material? These myths were popular for a reason they grabbed at people's attention. To say you could never respect a man who does the kind of work he does is not realistic, and it's frankly immature.Īnyone who can consistently produce the kind of mindblowing imagery seen in The Cell, The Fall, and The Immortals is clearly not a hack, and the quality of his one personal film is clearly not a fluke.įor one thing, why can't a movie studio just make a Greek heroes/Gods movie that actually follows the myth? I hated how Immortals mixed up names, myths, etc.
If he doesn't, then he'll continue to work as one of the best directors for hire in the world. I don't know if he has another personal story like that to tell. This was the movie he really cared about. In the process of doing his day job of making commercials, he managed to sneak in The Fall. As films like Mirror, Mirror go, his will have qualities that make it surpass the same film directed by, say, Rob Bowman (another director for hire). But as films like The Immortals go, his will be one of the best. Not every single one is going to be personal to him. Making commercials and films is how the man makes his living. Few directors for hire have his visual ability. And as directors for hire go, he's an amazing one. With all due respect, that's not how it always works.