The Immortals

Mark and John here [John writing now] to bring you a tag-team review of The Immortals.  I first saw this in 3D to appease a friend.  I never enjoy 3D action movies as much as their 2D counterparts.  Why, you might ask…because fast moving action like car crashes and fighting sequences get a bit blurry in 3D; the technology still hasn’t quite caught up with our stunt men.  Explosions and scenery tend to look great, though.  When I saw this in 3D I was wowed by the spectacles that Singh’s imagination had architected.  The skies and oceans looked pleasingly crisp.  The combat effects also were designed for 3D (especially at the very end!) with spinning, dismembered body parts shuttling through the air jettisoning gore in their turbulent wake.  Despite my consistent favoritism to 2D for action scenes, I couldn’t have been happier.

Then I met up with Mark and, happy to see this gorgeous movie again, we went to see it…this time in 2D.  The previously crisp oceans and skies seemed to turn flatter-than-2D and awkwardly fake.  The movie was still aesthetically pleasing, but the disparity in quality was unmerited.  This movie was clearly made for 3D with no consideration as to how it would look it 2D–a problem which I have not encountered before with other 3D movies.  At least, not to the point that I was bothered.  The movie was still a lot of fun, increasingly so moving from beginning to end, but if you only saw this in 2D please, oh please, give it another shot in 3D.  John, out.  Mark will take it from here with the finer points of the movie…

The Immortals can be summed up in three words “style over substance.”

The movie looks great yet the dialogue seems written by a person who got really drunk and started an all night writing session. In the drunken stupor it all made sense. However, when they woke up in the morning the reaction was similar to the audience’s. Everybody says “huh?”

The questionable writing is a moot point because nobody goes to movies like this expecting Aaron Sorkin dialogue. Audiences go to director Tarsem Singh’s (The Fall, The Cell)  films to see these things:

The movie focuses on a plethora of muscular people trying to stop Mickey Rourke from procuring a magical bow that can free belligerent titans. It is never fully understood as to why Rourke is so angry. The dude wants power at all costs and has no problem killing all of his most capable assistants in the process of gaining the world.

The conundrum is that Rourke is the same pugnacious guy you’ve seen in countless films. He murders all of his assistants, he wears a cool helmet and hates traitors. One of the positives that come out of the short dialogue is that you don’t have to listen to any Rourke monologues. This is a good thing because Rourke has adopted the breath heavy technique. Between every word/sentence he takes an incredibly deep breath. It becomes distracting.

Take a look at this picture. Rourke had to say “I hate good-looking muscular people and I want to free the titans so I can have absolute power. Also, I need a bath.” This line takes 11 minutes.

The Immortals doesn’t have the same amount of yelling and death that made 300 a classic amongst fanboys around the world. However, it is a breezy (helped by Rourke’s breathing) time that you will not regret.