Ever since the enjoyable but generally overrated 300, studios have been trying to recapture that magic (and money) with varying levels of success. Riding 300's momentum, the dreadful Clash of the Titans was released a couple years later. And of course there is director Zach Snyder and his copycats who have fallen in love with his visual style, some more successful (Watchmen) than others (Sucker Punch). Then there is Immortals which Snyder might as well have directed himself and labeled it 299 or 301, whichever you think makes it sound more impressive.
Let's first start with the story, which is a little complex, but not in the good way. My Greek mythology is a little rusty so I don't know how closely the movie follows the myths, if at all. Many moons ago, the gods were at war with each other. In the aftermath, the gods agreed to stay out of the affairs of man and the losers, the Titans, were imprisoned in a mountain. The evil King Hyperion, played by Mickey Rourke, is in search of a magical bow that is the ultimate weapon and the key to freeing the Titans so they could start another war with the gods. Why would he want to mess with Zeus and his homies? I'm not exactly sure, but I think it has something to do with pure spite; he is evil after all. In order to do so, he must find the oracle Phaedra, played by the beautiful Freida Pinto, who I suspect was only cast in this role because, well, she's beautiful. Do you think these Greek characters realize her English has an accent different from their own? Then there is the lowly peasant Theseus, the hero of the film played by Henry Cavill. Along with Phaedra, and a little help from the gods, Theseus must fight Hyperion and save mankind.
The story isn't actually that hard to follow, but needlessly complicated for no real reason other than to set up more battles I suppose. Oh yes, this film has battles and lots of them done in 300 fashion, meaning lots of slow motion, freezing the shot, bullet time camera rotations, and hyper stylized violence. A lot of it had the crowd oohing and ah-ing and I suppose I am guilty of it too, but after a while this type of action gets a little monotonous. The main problem is that none of the action is real; everything in this movie is CGI. So what if a Titan gets his head smashed in if it isn't even remotely close to looking real?
I suppose you could just assume the entire film was shot over a green screen since the entire picture looks fake. I realize that the look is intentional, as it was in 300, but what made a movie like Lord of the Rings impressive is that while it uses a ton of CGI, there were also gigantic realistic looking set pieces as well.
I am sad to report that the best scene of the movie, where Freida Pinto gets naked, is also fake; after checking the internet I am sad to report she used a body double. Sad face. Also, I realize that Henry Cavill must have worked really hard to get his perfectly sculpted body, but its just so cartoonish good looking that it fits in perfectly with everything else in the movie. I will say though that the picture is often quite pretty, sort of like looking at a painting, which the film basically is most of the time.
There are the obligatory moments of hero worshipping, obvious shots, corny speeches and other big action adventure cliches. Immortals is exactly the film you expect it to be from the previews so there really shouldn't be any reason to be disappointed coming out. Otherwise you had the bar set too high. All in all, I found it enjoyable standard blockbuster fare. Chalk it up as a guilty pleasure I guess. Not as good as 300 but miles ahead of Clash of the Titans.
Grade: B-
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