{2jtab: Movie Review}

Immortals - Blu-ray review

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3 Stars

While truly never a fan of director Tarsem Singh’s work (movies such as The Cell and The Fall), there’s no denying his visual style makes for a convincing foundation with which to build a movie upon.  Enter Immortals.  Every single frame of this film looks like the gold-encrusted paintings from the Byzantine Empire.  Visually, it’s a beautiful punch to the eyeballs and, while the story never is as powerful as the striking art design, Immortals makes for a better stab as a remake of Clash of the Titans than that actual film ever did.

One thing is for certain, a collective pounding of 110 beautiful but violent minutes are hard pressed to be forgotten so quickly and large parts of Immortals will soak into your sockets for days irregardless of how you feel about the story or the wonky editing choices.  From a story standpoint, Immortals is simply a retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus, played here by Henry Cavill (soon to be seen/judged/condemned/celebrated as the iconic Superman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel).

Trained by an old man (John Hurt), Theseus find himself on a path that will lead him to the virgin oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and The Epirus Bow, a weapon of mass destruction lost on Earth during the war between the Gods and the Titans.  Within the pages of a script by Vlas and Charley Parlapanides, he must avenge his mother’s (Anne Day-Jones) death at the hands of the mortal Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his henchmen who are in search of the bow.

What results is an epic battle that involves Zeus (Luke Evans), Athena (Isabel Lucas), Poseidon (Kellan Lutz), Ares (Daniel Sharman), Apollo (Corey Sevier), Heracles (Steve Byers), and a cunning slave and master thief named Stavros (Stephen Doriff) and a mountain landslide to end all of humanity…or most of the evil parts.  Using 3D technology and extensive work in post production on most, if not all, of the effects, Immortals might be a little lopsided with strong visuals and a rather rudimentary story, but it works more often than it does not.

Singh and cinematographer Brendan Galvin sling the camera as if it were a mighty axe and pierce more than one mortal’s neck with its blade.  Bodies go flying, body parts are cut free, and the blood from mortal wounds flows like the rivers in Tartarus.  Together, the two weave a great and bloody tapestry of action slow-motion spectacles, computer generated effects, and practical sets.  If only a painting, Immortals would be deemed a close masterpiece, but alas it’s a movie and other factors must be considered.

Less absent minded than the Clash of the Titans remake and clearly more focused, Immortals can’t quite grab its audience and throw them into the story.  The pacing is on and off and some of the moments are far more stoic than they are involving and passionate.  Certainly, this is an artistic film that belongs in any collection right next to 300, but it’s never quite as magnificent a vehicle as it ought to have been.

When it comes to Immortals, Singh’s handling of the ancient mythology is certainly interesting and its ‘watch a painting come to life’ visual styling makes it a film to at least experience and, if the mood strikes, appreciate.

{2jtab: Film Details}

Immortals - Blu-ray reviewMPAA Rating: R for sequences of strong bloody violence, and a scene of sexuality.
Director
: Tarsem Singh
Writer: Charley Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides
Cast: Henry Cavill; Mickey Rourke; Stephen Dorff; Freida Pinto; Luke Evans
Genre
: Action | Drama | Fantasy
Tagline: The Gods Need a Hero
Memorable Movie Quote: "Stand your ground! Fight for order! Fight for the man beside you! Fight for those who bore you! Fight for your children! Fight for your future! Fight for your name to survive! Fight! For immortality!"
Distributor:
Relativity Media
Official Site:
www.immortalsmovie.com
Release Date: November 1, 2011
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
March 6, 2012

Synopsis: The brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his murderous Heraklion army are rampaging across Greece in search of the long lost Bow of Epirus. With the invincible Bow, the king will be able to overthrow the Gods of Olympus and become the undisputed master of his world. With ruthless efficiency, Hyperion and his legions destroy everything in their wake, and it seems nothing will stop the evil king’s mission.

As village after village is obliterated, a stonemason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) vows to avenge the death of his mother in one of Hyperion’s raids. When Theseus meets the Sybelline Oracle, Phaedra (Freida Pinto), her disturbing visions of the young man’s future convince her that he is the key to stopping the destruction. With her help, Theseus assembles a small band of followers and embraces his destiny in a final desperate battle for the future of humanity.

{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}

Immortals - Blu-ray review

Component Grades
Movie

Blu-ray Disc
3 Stars

4 stars



Blu-ray Experience
3.5 stars

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - March 6, 2012
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English SDH, Spanish
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD); Digital copy (on disc); D-Box
Region Encoding: Locked to Region A

Immortals lands in the hands of mortals everywhere courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox in a 3D version and basic package.  The 1080p transfer is AVC encoded and captures some of the most visually stunning images to ever land on the blu-ray format.  Every frame is candle-light flickering on the edges of the screen and gold-encrusted with surreal uses of reds, inky blacks, and flame yellow hues inside the picture.  It’s kissed with a nice level of saturation and massaged with deep, deep, deep blacks.  Call it a brooding cascade of images with a heroic storyline to buoy it to the surface levels only.  Black levels, all important, never bleed into the stylized colors.  Large parts of this are visually more striking than the mono-chrome techniques of 300, but there are similarities.  The sound – all bottom heavy and ambitious in the rear channels – is presented in a lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mix.  It’s a hammering soundtrack that delivers sweet and spacious highs and then thunders the wall with bass levels that roll through the ambience.  Moody and sweet, Immortals definitely delivers more style than substance, but the journey is mouth-watering eye candy.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • None.

Special Features:

Equipped with a bonus Digital Copy of the film, the supplemental material gives a good – if brief – look at the movie. Case in point, there are five featurettes, totaling 25 minutes, and each one is lighter than Tinkerbelle flittering around Peter Pan.  They cover the production of the film and aspects of the narrative, but – other than a brief look at the mythology the film based its story on – there simply is no real heft to what they’ve done.  Weird considering how much effort had to go into some of the scenes.  There are also a collection of deleted scenes as well as two alternate endings that suggest there were other ways the narrative’s many death scenes could have gone.  Also included is an unused opening.  It was a good choice to cut.  Also included is a nice digital look at the graphic novel released to open the mythology up a little.

  • It's No Myth (5 min)
  • Caravaggio Meets Fight Club - Tarsem's Vision (20 min)
  • Alternate Opening - Young Theseus (12 min)
  • Alternate Ending - This is Our Last Embrace (9 min)
  • Alternate Ending - Theseus Kills Hyperion (4 min)
  • Eight Deleted Scenes (8 min)
  • Immortals: Gods and Heroes Graphic Novel
  • Theatrical Trailer

{2jtab: Trailer}

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