Director Tarsem Singh deserves to be a lot more well known solely on the basis of the swimming-elephant scene in The Fall (just imagining the logistics of that make me happy), which was a surprisingly good movie. I say surprisingly because his previous film was The Cell. Singh’s latest is Immortals, starring Mickey Rourke in whatever the hell that is in the banner picture. It looks if the bunny from Donnie Darko turned into a snap dragon and opened up to reveal Mickey Rourke’s face, which I imagine is the kind of hallucination that would put you off whatever drug had induced it. Immortals looks like your basic, The-gods-are-angry-at-the-shirtless-men-in-skirts premise, but at least with Singh directing, you know it will look neat. It takes a lot to impress with visuals alone in this day and age, and Singh is one of the few who can manage it. Oh, and there seems to be a fight scene that takes place in some sort of gravity-free, Sistine Monty Python-esque sky purgatory. What the hell? This movie looks bonkers
As a power-mad king razes ancient Greece in search of a legendary weapon, a heroic young villager rises up against him in a thrilling quest as timeless as it is powerful.
How can a quest be powerful? Oh nevermind.
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) [SUPERMAN!] 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. Opens 11-11-11. [Apple]
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST PEACE TREATY, WE SHALL OPEN A FILM ABOUT SWORD FIGHTING GOD! OOH WHA-AH AH-AH! That’s Hollywood history for you. Hey, wasn’t this day important for some reason? We should go with that. I also think it was rude to shoot a pure eye-candy film and then stick Kellen Lutz in it. That guy falls somewhere between Cam Gigandet and Evan Stone on the vomit-inducing monkey face scale.
[I included some publicity stills and screencaps on the following pages, because the visuals in this thing are insane]
Is it just me, or does this remind you of one of Terry Gilliam’s old Monty Python cartoons?
