Let's Review: Immortals

I am a big fan of mythology and folklore. I am not of course claiming that I am the most knowledgeable person in this field simply that I am a big fan and like to hear stories here or there. I understand that there is a big market in the retelling and customizing of the ancient tales, and that some are more successful than others in their retellings. That being said, did this new film succeed in the retelling of Theseus’ story? Let’s review Immortals.

The Negative

A few scenes early on in the film (and near the end as well) suffered from too many jump cuts. The scene jumps around so often that it’s easy to become disorientated. A jump cut allows us to establish various points of view of the same scene that allows us to focus in on the main action of the scene. The problem with too many jump cuts is that it doesn’t give the audience a long enough moment to focus on the main action in the scene. As a frame of reference, look at a picture for half a second then look away. You might be able to figure out a few things about the photo, but overall its main purpose will remain oblivious to you. The problem with too many jump cuts is that it actually removes the purpose of one in the first place.

The problem with the film is how silly it is. Now I liked the film 300, but admittedly the story is incredibly silly. Whether or not it’s trying to be historically accurate or mythological correct, overall the interpretation of the source material is very overblown. Immortals suffers from the same issue. Its retelling of the ancient myth is overblown to such high extents, it becomes incredible difficult to take it seriously. As an example, the old myth has Theseus fight a Minotaur at the center of a labyrinth, in the film Theseus brings his dead mother to the center of a maze of a shrine in order to bury her. Once there Theseus finds a magical bow that shoots arrows of light and fights King Hyperion’s assassin, a massive torturer who is wearing a barbed wire bull-shaped helmet that’s coated in poison as armor. Theseus manages to decapitate the mad man and bring the head outside to show his friends. IF THAT ISN’T OVERBLOWN SILLINESS I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS!

The Positive

I actually found myself quite enjoying this film. What really makes the film is its visual style. This is where the overblown works best for the film. The massive set pieces, beautiful areas, stunning special effects, and a number of other visual effects really make this film feel like a special kind of art piece. Most scenes with the gods were amazing to watch with the vast amount of effects that made them feel like they were actually gods dancing across the screen.

This was a great performance out of both Henry Cavill and Mickey Rourke. Cavill’s Theseus was a man who had such power and ferocity but all he wanted to do was live in peace with his loved ones. You can tell he deeply cares for his friends and family because he only shows his true colors as a warrior when one of them is threatened.

Rourke’s King Hyperion was an incredibly competent villain who knew exactly what he wanted and he wasn’t going to stop until his goals were accomplished. Hyperion was ruthless in his pursuits and showed his intelligence as a leader by viciously enslaving the traitor Lysander and forcing him to work for him instead of giving into his demands. If there was one thing wrong with him, it was the plot convenience fairy that forced him to be the dumb bad guy. I honestly don’t believe that this very competent ruler would let Theseus live after killing his mother in front of him, nor do I believe that he would stop himself from killing Theseus (when he had the advantage) in order to talk to him for a bit about his superiority. It was these two forced moments that allowed Theseus to live, and give Theseus the opening he needed to win in the final fight. Other than those two things, King Hyperion was a very intimidating villain when he wasn’t wearing his rabbit ears/lobster claw helmet in battle.

In Conclusion

This film had a lot of potential to be better than what it turned out to be. The biggest issue is that it let its over the top moments take over the film. There is only so much extreme action I can take in a film before it becomes redundant. I personally think this film would have done better had it not been based upon Greek mythology at all, and had instead tried to be its own franchise independent of the rules and regulations it has to follow with being a reinterpretation of mythology. 3.5 out of 5.