I was planning to watch Happy Feet 2 last night and ended up getting a little bit dismayed that the screening time was at 7PM and they were showing J Edgar and Immortals at 9PM. If I paid any attention at all I would have realized that the one and only movie house here have two theaters and two screening times (7 and 9) and there may be two different movies for each screening time. But this is what I get for assuming that I got it all figured out. After all the effort of getting dressed and going downstairs, I decided to watch a movie anyway. I didn't want to watch anything too heavy or serious or that would require my brain to be turned on. So I chose to watch Immortals. Now there are very few things in life that I ever regret doing and watching Immortals just found its way to that very short elite list.
First of all, I am not a huge fan of unnecessary gore and violence in cinema and this movie was just 110 minutes worth of butchering and slaughtering spree. It made Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th and that C-section scene from Breaking Dawn look like Disney movies. It started promising enough with a Socrates quote and I thought since it has something to do with Greek mythology there would be some well founded plot. I waited for 109 minutes and found none. So I just sat there and watched tongues being cut off, human flesh, muscles and bones turned to ground meat, necks being slit, beheading galore and hope that somehow a justifiable story would surface from all the bloodshed. And I had to watch all these in unnecessary 3D. Before anybody can accuse me of being a queasy kill joy or prudish bore, let it be known that I enjoyed watching Drag Me To Hell and Inglorious Basterds.
At some point when I thought I have already become immune to all the graphic, computer generated gore and stopped flinching from the sight of blood, muscles and heads flying all over the place, I started to feel nauseous, with an intense desire to gag and grab a barf bag . . even if it means grabbing a bag of popcorn from somebody in the audience (good thing I didn't waste any money on popcorn last night). But this time it wasn't because of the macabre violence of the film but more on how the story was developing, the dialogues that can make your eyeballs roll with such intensity it can induce seizures and the way the actors take extra effort to act like the Greek statues featured in the movie (read: cold and lifeless). Well, Mickey Rourke, who played the overacting evil King Hyperion, did overcompensate for all (and I mean all) his co actors' lackluster performances. I think it was only when some character gets killed and blood is spilled that you realize that wow there was life there after all (but then it's too late)..Every time Henry Cavill (Theseus) was on screen I found myself saying, please don't let him be Superman. But unfortunately, he is going to play the part of the beloved super hero. Thus giving a whole new meaning to "man of steel". Half of the time I cannot understand a word he was saying but it was not really a big deal because most of the dialogues do not really have any relevance to the unfolding of the story. So he was like, mumble, mumble, kill, kill, blood and more blood. I almost reached my seizure threshold when prior to the big battle scene,Theseus delivered that highly formulaic pre battle Brave Heart inspired speech in front of an army who don't even know who in Zeus name he was. When he was shouting to the men to listen to him, one of the soldiers shouted back, "who are you that we should listen to you"? Which was actually a good and valid question. Anyway, he was able to calm this panicky, chaotic army by telling them to "think of their children, think of their future" and all other recycled words of motivation every leader of the army delivered to their men prior to every battle scene in all battle movies (where was the army leader anyway?) when there was never any indication in any part of the film that this was an army of daddies going to war for the sake of their kids and some unforeseen bright future since from beginning to end they just portrayed themselves to be a bunch of blood and meat thirsty men! Unless I did go into a seizure and missed that part. I can't help myself but I actually laughed out loud during this part of the film. And when the king from Theseus' company with a cameo appearance of two minutes told an approaching King Hyperion "We can negotiate" with all the dryness of a beef jerky and the evil Hyperion just kept walking and cut the poor king's head off I had to decide whether to waste my energy on a chuckle or roll my eyeballs or just sit still. I sat still. The film was approaching climax so maybe the worst was yet to come.
Even Thesius' finding of the highly coveted Epirus Bow did nothing to help the film take a turn of any relevance or significance. In fact he keeps dropping or misplacing the bow! I would have found it hilarious if I wasn't so annoyed. Ok so that bit of klutziness was necessary so that the bow can land in Hyperion's hands so he can free the Titans. But still. Anyway, there were a few dialogues here and there inserted in between all the killings, butchering and blood fest so maybe there was really a story unfolding somewhere. In the spirit of fairness, nobody was spared from getting their hands bloodied and their jugular veins dissected, even the supposedly immortal gods. Jupiter was killed by daddy Zeus (again unnecessarily) and Athena ended up with this perfectly vertical slit on her neck you are tempted to insert a tracheostomy tube on it to keep her alive (by life, of course, I am referring to her lifeless acting not to that actual scene where she was dying. To quote a line from another movie, the title of which escapes me now, "how can she die, she didn't even live"). Maybe it's because she was a goddess she was still able to deliver a very clear dying speech (clearer than a very much alive Theseus' monologue) to her grieving father Zeus even if the sword went straight to her vocal cords. To the mothers out there, if your kids tell you they want to see this movie for Greek mythology appreciation, don't let them. This is about as Greek mythology as Dora the Explorer is Latin Literature.
Another annoying and unnecessary part of the film was Freida Pinto's presence (as the virgin oracle). I'm still debating whether to even discuss her role at all. Okay I will. Her vision of Theseus' future was supposedly a crucial aspect of the story but again it did little to string or sew together a plot that was all over the bloody (literally!) place. Well it did serve as an icebreaker so that she and Theseus can make chitchat, let sparks fly and provide a love angle to the story. And speaking of sparks between Theseus and Phaedra (Pinto) . . well actually, there was none. The romance part was so fleeting, irrelevant and devoid of any chemistry that if you so much as blinked you would have missed it and would wonder in the end why all of a sudden this narrator is saying that there's this kid who's the son of Theseus. I think Freida Pinto's character was just inserted in the film to neutralize the testosterone overload with a little estrogenic presence. It didn't help.
My favorite part of the film was when it finally ended. Maybe I am just bitter because I had to watch this instead of Happy Feet but I was not too happy with Immortals. If I was not too disturbed by all that blood and gore I would have laughed at the silly premise of the film. But then again I got what I wanted - nothing serious and no brain required. So I should stop complaining then, eh?
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