Immortals

Immortals - or as I miscalled it constantly The Immortals - presented itself to me as a 300 clone. Perhaps a knock off. But after watching it, I see it's not true, in fact it only takes a few minutes of watching that it's simply not the case. If anything, watch the television series Spartacus to see the visual "knock-off" of 300: in your face CGI, half naked men everywhere (and added fully naked women to the mix) and enough blood to fill your in-ground pool. Spartacus is engaging regardless, and stands on it own, as well this movie should as well. That's not necessarily a good thing: this movie was lacking in some areas, and excelled in others.

Perhaps excels is too strong a word. Was I entertained? Yes. But I kept focusing on something. As the movie begins, we learn that the Immortals in the title refer to the ancient gods, and gives a brief history of how they came to be. I'm a little unclear, but there was a civil war of sorts where all these Immortals find out that they can kill one another where normally they are invincible. One group comes out on front, and the imprison the other survivors in a standing prison of sorts, buried deep on Earth. The victors are the great gods of mythology, led by Zeus himself, with Poseidon, Athena and Apollo in tow, to name a few. A mad king (played well enough by Mickey Rourke) is on a bender to free these imprisoned immortal beings for one reason or another. It doesn't matter: he wants chaos and death, which should be enough for everyone to want to stop him.

Come down to Earth and we have Theseus, a mortal with the capabilities to stand among the gods, but he's a simple peasant. His primary motivation is the murder of his mother by none other than King Hyperion himself. There's some talk of some mystical bow, visions from an attractive oracle then a quest to prevent the king from getting said bow as he'll use it to free the "evil" immortal beings. The mythical beings - Zeus, specifically - are basically jerks, or at least they are presented this way in the movie. They've imprisoned these other beings for all eternity and they refuse to assist humans (for punishment of death).


This is the spoiler alert. It actually bugged me quite a bit: King Hyperion eventually frees the immortals with the magical bow, and they are growling, incoherent monsters. I thought they were equals, caught in a civil war and on the losing side. Perhaps the prison they were in turned them into mindless zombies: Zeus and his buddies come down in full force, clad in golden armour and outmatching these zombies in skill and power. It becomes a numbers game, and a disappointing albeit flashy fight.

So sure, the plot is spotty at best, but the action is good times. I felt the shadow of 300 here, and indeed, in other movies, through action scenes where the hero systematically moves forward and dispatches a dozen enemies in slow-and-fast motion, blood splattering everywhere. It was impressive in 300 and entertaining in movies like this - especially in an age of movies where action scenes are dominated by fast cuts and shaky cameras.