While “Immortals” isn’t a particularly bad movie, it shies away from the potential greatness that occasionally peeks through its overwhelming tapestry of blandness. It shows the chops to be a classic; a “Lord of the Rings” set to Greek mythology.
The plot contains nothing resembling a creative idea. Theseus has been chosen by Zeus to be the champion of humanity, for reasons hardly explained. He must stop King Hyperion from finding the mythic Epirus bow, freeing the Titans and overthrowing the Gods.
The entire script is handled hastily. The bow, which was built up to be a major plot point, is stumbled upon by accident, and then promptly disappears, only to be used briefly in the climax. The fact that Theseus is a demigod in Greek mythology seems to be hinted at as the reason for his selection as humanity’s champion, but the thread is never followed. That’s the least of the deviations from the source material; it goes as far as to rewrite the entire Greek creation story. The character development is almost nonexistent. After Theseus recovers the bow, he is told by his sidekick not to expect to be treated any differently, when almost no scenes had been shown to set up how he was treated beforehand.
Theseus is supposed to be destined to be the great leader that humanity needs, but the only thing he does resembling leadership is giving an impassioned speech at the knockoff battle of Helm’s Deep. Hyperion’s motives for taking on such a daunting endeavor as conquering the Gods is something that could have been built up into a big reveal in the third act. Instead, the audience is told in his first lines of dialogue that he is angry at the Gods for letting his family die of disease. On second thought, I’m glad that wasn’t made into a big reveal.
The main draw of the movie is the excellent combat scenes, which eschew the recent trends of substituting choreography for shaky shots and rapid editing. The fights are shown in long, sweeping takes that display the action crisply and clearly, and makes good use of ramp slow motion — having the action alternate from being sped up to being slowed down — but manages to keep the use subtle. The God fights are where the movie is at its best. The otherworldly powers of the deities are expertly conveyed, bringing with them a fitting sense of awe. Unfortunately, all of the fight scenes are few and far between. There are only a small handful of mortal fight scenes, and they all end prematurely. However two God fights go on for a decent length, despite their infrequency.
There aren’t bad performances in “Immortals,” but nothing stands out. The actors competently deliver their paper-thin dialogue without sounding like they’re reciting lines. Henry Cavill, as the noble Theseus, delivers the alternating rage and sorrow of the character, but none of it hits home. Whether this is the fault of the performance, or the lack of any real attachment to the character is hard to say. Mickey Rourke is interesting as King Hyperion, but he doesn’t stand out from the slew of other villains in the tradition of epic fantasy films. Luke Evans brings the only impressive performance to Zeus. He shows some potent emotions roiling under the surface of the thinly written character.
The art direction seems to be the one place where a heavy investment has been made. The color palette, the sets and the costumes all work hard to give the movie a strong, unified feel. The entire movie looks fantastic and holds interest when everything else happening on screen is boring. The costumes especially stand out, going for a simple design, while still having excellent subtle details. The Gods’ costumes have an unique art deco style that still builds off of archetypal images. While only three Gods are addressed by name, someone with even a cursory knowledge of the pantheon will be able to recognize most of them based on their outfits alone.
The interesting aspects of “Immortals” makes me wonder if something integral was left out by producers, and if a director’s cut could make it the classic that it deserves to be, but the amount of blandness and underdevelopment feels too overwhelming to be fixed with a few changed scenes or edits.