Immortals

As one may recall, my first film reviewed here was Clash of the Titans, a film that was all about the clashes and no Titans. This time, I'm reviewing Immortals, another 3D film about the clashes and this time, the Titans.

As John Hurt the narrator explains, the Titans were imprisoned in Mt. Tartarus after being defeated by the Olympian Gods. Years later, the evil King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) decides to conquer the world by siccing the Titans on the Gods. To free them, he has to get the Epirus Bow, a magic bow that fires light arrows that pack a wallop.

Unfortunately for him, he decides to kill the peasant Aethra (Anne Day-Jones) in front of her son, Theseus (Henry Cavill). Taken prisoner, Theseus decides to lead some fellow escapees to Tartarus to find the bow and to keep Hyperion and the Titans from taking over. Meanwhile, the Gods wonder if they should get involved.

Director Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) certainly doesn't disappoint with the surreality. The sets, almost all of them real, are real marvels for this age. The costumes, by Oscar-winner Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker's Dracula), are reliably flashy. Meanwhile, the actual CGI stuff, such as teleportation effects and a tidal wive, are quite well-realized.

But it takes a special effort to figure out what's going on here. Some references to Ancient Greece are quite noticeable; other times, they're not because they were tossed in there. A few characters, such as some of the Gods, aren't distinguishable from one another for this reason. They're just there, and for some, I couldn't remember when they got there.

It kind of makes it hard to root for the good guys, doesn't it?

Maybe you can figure it out better than me. It's in 2D or 3D, but you'll have to act fast before it's drowned by the rest of the Holiday films coming this year.