Immortals: a rambling review

I thought I'd turn this disused blog to another purpose, mainly because I feel like getting down my feelings about new the new loosely-based-on-Greek-mythology film, Immortals. Expect spoilers.

First of all,  a young woman awakens from a dream, surrounded by her three friends on a circular sleeping mat. She's an oracle, you see. She's just seen someone in a pointy hat and with a golden mask using a glowing bow to destroy a cage holding a group of feral-looking blokes arranged in rows with their teeth clamped on iron bars - sort of like table footballers, really. She says that this is King Hyperion using the Epirus bow to free the Titans. Fine, okay, except that in Greek mythology Hyperion WAS a titan (the Lord of Light, as it happens), so I'm not sure what's going on there. Apparently Hyperion's coming for her - Mickey Rourke then storms into the temple, talks about how the gods did nothing when his wife and child died of a disease and sets a priest on fire, Hyperion clearly following the Henry VIII method of religious revolution.

We then get John Hurt's voice. Apart from setting my wife giggling because he apparently narrates the 'Merlin' TV series as a dragon, John Hurt is generally a good starting point. He lends an air of gravitas and a gentle assurance that not everyone in this film is going to be American. He tells us that the immortals found out they could kill each other one day and war broke out. The winners of that war called themselves gods, and banished the losers (titans) into a prison below Mount Tartarus. Now, those of you who think as I do might ponder upon this. Were I the winner of a war who'd just found out that he could kill his enemies, I might actually kill my defeated enemies instead of putting them into a prison. I mean, that's what we were fighting about in the first place, right? I'm not sure. Anyway, that's what the gods did, which is just the first of many mistakes they'll make over the course of this film.

Then we move to a village on a cliffside somewhere, where we meet Theseus, aka Henry Cavill showing off his six pack and an English accent you could use to cut glass. He's the son of an unmarried woman apparently, not like the Theseus in Greek mythology who was the son of a king and a god, I believe (both slept with his mother in one night, because that's how biology works). He's talking to John Hurt, playing yet another Aged Counsellor figure and suggesting that Theseus should have a kid. Theseus then meets his mother as she emerges from the Labyrinth which is something to do with where his village store their dead (so they can't find their way out? Sounds sensible to me). Theseus points out that he's not religious and that the priest has a most ridiculous hat, which he certainly does. This is the first of another theme in this movie; stupid hats.

People talk about Hyperion coming. Why he's going to bother coming to a little village on a cliff I don't know, because he's looking for the Epirus bow and there's no chance of it being HERE, surely? Also, Theseus gets annoyed at a soldier (Lysander) calling his mother a whore and beats him up, then turns down the sergeant's offer of employment. To be fair, if I was offered a job with an organisation who showed that level of employee protection I might do the same. Lysander is removed from his office, because badmouthing a peasant's mother and then being beaten up is apparently a firing offence in the Greek military. Then John Hurt is revealed to be Zeus as he wanders around in the darkness and turns into Orlando Bloom in a stupid god number, who talks to his daughter Athena, also in gold. Neither of them are wearing hats that are particularly ridiculous, lucky them. Athena says that Zeus has been influencing Thesus, but Zeus says no, only as a human, his friend, not as a god. I guess that's alright then, since there seems to be some sort of law against the latter.

Lysander decides to kill the village's sentries and heads off to be a traitor to Hyperion, who's not really interested in him, so gets his 'beast' (a huge man in a barbed wire bull helmet) to claw his face to mark him as a coward, then castrate him with a mallet - sort of like Ancient Jackass, I guess. Then Hyperion turns up at the village anyway and kills pretty much everyone, including Theseus's mother in front of him. Theseus is strong enough to be a threat, so he's put to work in the salt mines. Up on Olympus, Zeus warns all the other gods not to interfere in mortal affairs. Someone asks 'what if Hyperion finds the Epirus bow and frees the titans', at which Zeus looks appropriately grim but doesn't answer.

In the salt mines, Theseus encounters a few characters who scream 'quirky but loyal companions', as well as the four oracle girls who are there for no apparent reason whatsoever, having been captured. The real oracle (the other three are there to hide her identity) trips over Theseus and gets a vision of the future. Him holding the Epirus bow and embracing Hyperion, with a wave over him and a wrapped up body on a rock in front of him.

Let's hold here a second. The oracle of the god has seen a vision saying that this man will find the bow, the thing that Hyperion is after and that can release the titans from their prison, something which might spell the end of the gods that she worships (maybe they've flabby and out of shape? After all, the titans are there because they lost, unless I'm remembering wrong). Now, the oracle girls are revealed to have knives and to know how to use them - they kill some guards for the real oracle to lead an escape in a few minutes. Were I her, however, the first target for my blade would be Theseus BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO FIND THE FUCKING BOW, THEN HUG HYPERION. Instead she gives him water to keep him alive and makes sure he escapes with them.

Off they trot, then, to the coastline. They try to hijack a boat but it proves to have a load of Hyperion's soldiers in it. Things look bad for the companions, but then Poseidon leaps out of Olympus and crashes into the sea to send a tidal wave that washes away the soldiers. Let us pause a moment to look at Poseidon's choice of headwear:

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Seriously, what's going on there? It looks like Jean Paul Gaultier tried designing a new head protector for Petr Cech and then discarded the design for being too tacky. If I wore a hat like that, I'd be sorely tempted to jump into the sea.

Meanwhile, Hyperion has the oracle's three friends who aren't being helpful, but he sends other people off to Theseus's old village because they have a temple there, or something. Dude, you've just been there.

So, Theseus has escaped certain death due to a god's intervention. Right, we'll give him a free pass for that one. The oracle, having gained credence because she told them what to do with the incoming wave that she saw in her vision, then tells Theseus he must go back and bury his mother (that's the body she saw on the rock in front of him). Theseus heads off like a good little boy and gets back to his village, where he goes into the Labyrinth and pushes her into place, then decides to take a hammer and chisel to a rock and PULLS OUT THE FUCKING EPIRUS BOW.

Well, whoops.

Then the 'beast' turns up and tries to kill Theseus, but Theseus kills him. I like that. Took the minotaur myth but instead of it being a half-human, half-bull offspring of a Minoan lady who built a wooden cow to lie inside to seduce the White Bull, her island's cow-shaped sea god (seriously, look it up. It's like the x-rated Trojan Horse), it's a massive bloke in a bull helmet. I like how they tried to show how a myth could grow from that, like at the end of Troy where Achilles has pulled out all the arrows except the one in his heel, which gave rise to the myth that he was immortal everywhere except there. However, in this film it makes fuck all sense BECAUSE THERE ARE THE GODS IN THEIR STUPID HATS.

Anyway, Theseus gets out, finds more soldiers threatening his friends and shoots them all with the Epirus bow. Let's pause another moment and examine the Epirus bow, shall we?

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Yup, that's pretty much what it looks like. Seriously, you couldn't do better than rip off an 80s cartoon that was in itself a cheap attempt to cash in on a geeky game's brief popularity?

Anyway, he now has the Epirus bow, the thing that Hyperion can use to free the titans. Personally, I'd have broken the bloody thing over my knee and then laughed at Mickey's sad face, but I'm not hero material. Instead Theseus and his mates head off to find the Hyperion to kill him, but not before Theseus FUCKS THE VIRGIN ORACLE. And her 3D arse. She says she wants to see the world through her own eyes, love with her own heart, touch with her own flesh, etc. What she really means is she's had enough of being important and valued for her own merits, and is now ready to be nothing but a bit of arm candy for a six-packed peasant with an incongruous accent. Thus ends the only slightly positive female character in the film.

They get to Hyperion's base at the Oracle's former temple, but Hyperion's packed up and headed off for where the rest of the Greek army are based. They find the Oracle's former sisters in a metal bull heated over fire, all burned up and uglified; this desecration of holy flesh apparently drives the priest who's been taking along into a state of madness (dude, Theseus just fucked your oracle into uselessness, these girls were just her cover, this was in effect their job, to take the shit so she could remain free and oracle-y). He runs down into the nearby quarry with a sword, even though Theseus and the Loveable Thief shout "it's a trap!" Well Theseus, in that case, why not shoot the people down there in that NICE, OPEN QUARRY with your ALMIGHTY BOW? No? No, you'll run down after the priest, get blindsided and then have Hyperion's trained hyena (seriously, that just made Hyperion the hero for me, I love hyenas) snatch the bow and leg it.

Theseus is about to get killed, but Hermes appears and kills all Hyperion's men, then Athena appears and gives him a couple of horses that will run 'until their hearts give out', because the gods are big up on animal welfare. Then Zeus appears, mad that his edict has been defied (hey Orli, Poseidon already did it once, did you miss that?). So he kills Hermes. Let's take a look at Hermes' hat, shall we?

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That's one hell of a mohawk.

Zeus doesn't kill Athena though, because... hell if I know, I think he fancies her, and she's his daughter. Still, this is Greece. Anyway, Theseus and the Loveable Thief and the Now-Useless Oracle head off to where the Greek 'army' is (and the horses do die. Lovely). Hyperion gets the bow and is chuffed. The Greek leader ignores Theseus's advice to 'close the gate', and then Hyperion wanders up under an olive branch of peace and wants Theseus to join his army. Theseus says no and closes the gate anyway, which Hyperion promptly blows in with the Epirus bow the next morning and everyone starts fighting in the entrance tunnel... a tunnel with loads of hallways off it. Nice going, Greeks.

Oh, when Hyperion is blowing up the gate? He too wears a silly hat. The silliest of the lot, in fact:

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Yes, that's a giant crab claw on his head. Maybe he's advertising seafood? I really don't know.

Hyperion wanders merrily away from the battle in the tunnel up to where the Greek leader is and kills him, then on into Mount Tartarus. Theseus and the Loveable Thief follow him, presumably cursing the Greek leaders who decided to build an entrance tunnel with multiple ways for opposing leaders to get out of the way of the fighting and to where they want to go. They get into Mount Tartarus after him, just too late to prevent Hyperion from freeing the titans. Then Loveable Thief gets the bow and kills one titan before the rest swarm him, and then the gods appear looking pissed off and with weapons. Zeus tells Theseus to get after Hyperion, which he does.

Theseus and Hyperion scrap, and basically kill each other. The gods and the titans fight and all the gods are killed except Zeus, who grabs handles, pulls chains and collapses Mount Tartarus in on the titans, then grabs Athena/her corpse and disappears skywards. And then in the aftermath we're told that because of Theseus's bravery the gods gave him a song (see, the Oracle DID have a use afterwards! She was a womb for the hero's seed!).

Don't get me wrong, Immortals was a relatively entertaining film to watch. Mickey Rourke made an excellent antagonist, with an understandable motive and an appealing efficiency to his work, but also a callous brutality that made him easily dislikeable. Cavill's portrayal of Theseus was engaging, with enough easy charm to get behind him a bit but without being wet. Even Orlando Bloom didn't mess up being Zeus. However, the hats made the entire thing rather ridiculous, as did the Hank Bow. However, what I really want to draw attention to is the plot.

In conclusion: The Gods imprisoned their ancient enemies rather than killing them. The Oracle saved the life of the man she saw would find the thing that could release the Titans, and as a result of her advice Theseus went back to his village and found it, instead of it remaining hidden. He then didn't break it into pieces, but instead took it to where he thought Hyperion was. When Hyperion wasn't there, he allowed it to be captured. Hyperion then wandered through a badly-thought out defensive construct and freed the Titans. The Gods came down, got themselves killed, and Zeus collapsed Mount Tartarus on them while Hyperion and Theseus killed each other.

The Gods saved Theseus's life, directly, twice. Zeus himself spent twenty years or so grooming the young man into a warrior. Yet without Theseus, they'd have been fine! Hyperion would have never found the bow! Even if he HAD, Theseus didn't do anything to stop him releasing the Titans. He got there too late, all he managed was to kill Hyperion afterwards. Zeus had to collapse Mount Tartarus to stop them (hint: if that stops them, why not collapse Mount Tartarus on them in the first place, if you didn't want to just kill them?) This ENTIRE FILM could have taken place without the supposed 'hero' whose deeds would give him 'immortality'. All Theseus did was screw up, royally. Oh, and screw an Oracle to ensure she could no longer lead her religion and instead became a single mother given no credit for anything other than being the baby mother of a 'famous hero'.

Hollywood... you so messed up.