Immortals

The picture is a fun sword and sandals epic with stirring adventures , struggles , bizarre scenarios and turns out to be an acceptable story and quite entertaining . The story is very loosely based on Greek mythology , creating a potpurrí of Gods and legends , mingling elements of various myths . As screen writers state that they chose to change many aspects of the ancient Greek stories to reflect the fact that the Greeks themselves often revised their mythology to conform to new ideas and knowledge . In Classical Greek mythology , Immortals were members of the second order of divine beings, descending from the primordial deities and preceding the Olympian deities . Based on Mount Othrys, the Titans most famously included the first twelve children of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) and Uranus (Father Heaven). They were giant deities of incredible strength, who ruled during the legendary Golden Age , and also composed the first pantheon of Greek deities . As they had overthrown the primordial deities, the Immortal Titans were overthrown by younger gods, including many of their own children - the Olympians - in the Titanomachy (or "War of the Titans"). There were twelve Olympian gods and goddesses and they were immortal and unkillable as well . The Greeks may have borrowed this mythology from the Ancient Near East . There were only 12 titans in the myths and they were immortal and invincible . There was a war in the heavens and the Titans lost . Zeus then threw them into Tartarus , which is represented as a mountain in the movie, but in the old myths was a cave at the center of the Earth with minor similarities to Hell, to be imprisoned for all eternity . The picture takes Greek Gods here and there , as in the myths , Theseus (Henry Cavill , he trained for 8 hours 5 days a week to get in shape for the film) was actually King of Athens and (in some versions) a son of Poseidon (Greek god of sea and Zeus' brother, being played by Kellan Lutz), although his legal father was King Aegeus of Athens . Theseus killed the Minotaur , a creature with the body of a man and a head of a bull imprisoned in a labyrinth, depicted here as a man with a helmet made of wires and horns with the help of princess Ariadne whom he later married . In the Theseus story, Crete had its capital at Knossos, and its ruler was cruel King Minos , here Hyperion (Mickey Rourke , he chose to do this movie instead Conan , 2011) defies the Greek God , Zeus (Luke Evans ,he appeared a year earlier as Zeus' son Apollo in Clash of Titans) . Hyperion origin is from a different myth, and was the name of one of the 12 Titans . Epirus Bow doesn't exist in any mythology, but it might be inspired by the bow of Heracles aka Hercules which was used by the Greeks to defeat Troy in the great war . Other Gods appearing are the followings : Apollo (Corey Sevier) , Athena or Minerva (Isabel Lucas) who is the daughter of Zeus (or Jupiter) and Metis, a daughter of the Titans, and goddess of wisdom , Heracles (Steve Byers) ,a son of Zeus who was the only hero to ascend to Olympus to rule with the Gods and Poseidon , he is the Greek god of the sea, equivalent to the Roman Neptune . Furthermore , Sibyl (Freida Pinto, though Lily Collins auditioned for a part, but was turned down by director) was the ancient Roman title for prophetesses .

Big production that blends Greek Gods , fights , feats and spectacular images by means of Computer Generator . Violent movie combines historic events , drama and breathtaking fights . The flick packs nice settings , characters with elaborate costumes and a seamless combination of practical and CGI effects . Every little scene has been given maximum detail, as gowns , environment and set design , adding too much C.G.I. backgrounds and lush frames showing overwhelming combats between Gods and humans . To achieve the effect of gods moving much quicker than humans, those scenes were shot at 1000 frames per second . Brilliant and glimmer cinematography by Brandan Galvin , being "done in Renaissance painting style" . Vibrating and shaking musical score by Trevor Morris . This passable picture was originally directed by Tarsem Singh , though has some flaws and gaps . Tarsem Singh described his approach to the film as being "like Caravaggio (1986) meets The fight Club (1999)" . He frequently collaborated with the late costume designer Eiko Ishioka , until her passing, she was the only designer he had worked with . Tarsem also made similar experiments filled with light , color and weird frames such as ¨The fall¨, ¨The cell¨and ¨Mirror , Mirror¨ .

When I first saw the trailer to this movie I thought it would be a lame movie that has mythological elements in it like the recent "Clash of the Titans" movie. But this movie I gotta admit is much better with the direction and the gory and bloodiness of it all. The movie is brutal like how mythological movies like this should be. The story isn't anything amazing or anything like that but the cinematography, the violence and the mythological powers that is portrayed in this movie makes it worth a watch. The parts where the gods comes down to intervene or just fight is very cool to watch and is some of the most entertaining parts of the movie. If the story was good as some of the sequences in this movie this could have easily been a must see movie of 2011. But still it's a entertaining flick that I didn't regret forking over few bucks to see in theater.

7.4/10

I went to see this movie with the pretense of "It's going to be a combination of Troy, 300, and Clash of the Titans"... in my own mind, Troy was a 7*, 300 a 10* and Clash of the Titans a 3* movie... That averages out to a 6.67* movie. So that's what I went in expecting.

This movie had a bit more story time than I anticipated, a lot of time was spent away from epic battles but there was plenty of fighting to keep me happy. Special effects were great, stylized blood was plenty but not too much, Frieda Pinto is gorgeous, and Henry Cavill is jacked. The acting was pretty good; to be fair, not very much was necessary from anyone besides Henry Cavill, but none of the actors underperformed.

The quality of the fight scenes was great. Not a single fight scene went by where I was like "ok, I waited 5 minutes for that!?." The fight with the Greek Gods was very well done, although many people may disagree (more on that in the next paragraph). Most of the fights are just "look at Thesius... oh how he knows how to fight." But I personally couldn't care less how many people are fighting as long as the fights are well done.

The fight pertaining to the Gods is seen partly in the trailers when you see people floating in mid air as they and their friends get punished continuously. It's very Matrix/Kung Fu style, and some people didn't like that. But the way I see it, these are Gods fighting, not humans and legends. The fight has to have a different substance than just simple blood and guts.

What really irked me were the inconsistencies with Greek Mythology and the lack luster "epicness" of the Eperius bow. For one, the number of Gods present in this movie is 5. Zeuss, Poseidon, Apollo, Athena and one more... as far as the movie goes, they could of at least shown all of the Olympians. Also, the Titans are shown as rabid monkeys against the Gods. As far as I remember, they were equal to the Gods in strength and intellect. Lastly, the Eperius Bow was not as epic as they had built it up to be; especially the first time it's shot, it sort of just happens.

All in all, the movie was what most people should expect from it. Well done fight scenes, stylized blood, gorgeous Frieda Pinto and Gods.

Honestly...I don't review many movies unless I truly see it necessary. I saw Immortals this afternoon in a matinée and thought that it was an all around great movie. I am getting really sick and tired of hearing all this negative criticism about movies that lack CGI or have an overabundance of CGI. Seriously? Is it always something that isn't good enough? People, we live in the 21st century. What do you expect movie producers and designers to do with the ongoing technological developments? The cinematic experience of today is a culmination of savory snacks and drinks with an absolutely jaw dropping, eye opening motion picture that displays technology's latest and greatest effects to the ever expectant viewers. 75 % of people who attend a movie WANT to go and see what vast improvements that technology has brought to the theater on that occasion. It's a thrill to experience unimaginable landscapes, vivid colors, epic battle sequences, and all things as such...and we are provided these things BY means of technology aka CGI. So, what I am saying, is that if you really want a film without all the technological aspects, then go to a drive-in or sit at home and pop The Goonies into your dust ridden VCR. You know that movies like Immortals are going to be filled with computer generated scenes. If you are going to argue about it in the end every time, then just stay at home and save yourself and the rest of the viewing community a lot of unwanted negativity. By the way, Immortals is so worth seeing. Thanks.

This film certainly has its flaws. Weak character development is the main one, but it's not nonexistent. The film's atmosphere and graphic bloodshed/torture is disturbing and captivating, accurately portraying what most people imagine of Greeks fighting. The story is interesting, definitely not accurately following the mythology but creating an alternate universe with the same characters. The direction, acting, and effects were all well done. Everyone who was present at the midnight showing thoroughly enjoyed it. It is not a perfect film, but it is undeniably enjoyable and much better than other similarly themed movies that have been made recently.