Immortals
I went to see Immortals with a certain amount of trepidation, having seen the trailers and wondering what strange revisiting of Greek mythology they might be up to: Theseus with a bow? Fighting Hyperion? Really? But then, I'm all for re-imagining mythology, as anyone who knows my work on Buffy and the Orpheus myth will realise. Also, I did actually rather enjoy 300, despite its distinctly dodgy historical authenticity, and this was very much hyped as from the same stable.
Well, so much for trepidation: I need not have worried. This film was infinitely worse than anything I could ever have begun to imagine. Let us leave aside the fact that the what it owes to Greek mythology is primarily the names Theseus, Phaedra, Hyperion and Zeus, names which have simply been pasted on to characters in the film who bare no resemblance whatsoever to their namesakes. Let us also leave aside the ludicrous design (merchant ship? Really? And what's with all the ridiculous hats? If I were a god, I would not parade around looking like a Christmas tree decoration. And why is Hyperion wearing a Venus Flytrap on his head?). Let us also leave aside the gut-wrenching scenes of violence, torture and maiming that seemed to belong more in a slasher movie than a historical-fantasy epic (I do not often close my eyes when watching a film, you know); and cast a veil over the chronically wooden script and two dimensional characterization (Theseus appears to only have smug and angry modes, although poor Henry Cavill does his best with the part; while the caricature evil warlord played by Mickey Rourke is deadly boring after about four minutes). No, my real problem is what they did to the gods. Firstly, the pantheon on Olympus is reduced to six. No Hera, no Aphrodite, no Hermes, no Artemis, Hephaestus, Hestia, Pan or Dionysus. Instead, we just have Zeus, Athena, Ares, Poseidon, Apollo and...er...Heracles. Not actually a god last time I checked, just one of the many mostly-human progeny of the gods. Only not in this film, because here a whole tranche of Christian mythology has been superimposed on top of the Greek. Here, we have a Zeus who will not interfere in human affairs (free will, don't you know) and forbids the other gods to do so either, killing Apollo (I think – it was very difficult to tell who was whom, and I'm not at all sure which of the gods had a gem encrusted hammer as his weapon of choice: maybe Hephaestus if he were feeling a little giddy) when he helps out Theseus by dispatching a few enemy soldiers. I'm sorry, since when did the Greek gods, capricious, selfish and vengeful bunch that they are, ever give a monkey's about not interfering in human affairs? That's what most of the myths are about, not this sanctimonious “thou shalt not interfere but leave them to make their own choices” business that has clearly been imported from more recent ideas on the nature of the divine. At the end, Theseus dies to save us all and is bodily assumed into heaven (we see him shoot up into the sky in a comet of golden light); and the film ends with his posthumous son surveying a set of bas-reliefs, with one of them showing Theseus apparently crucified with one weeping women kneeling beside him and three others standing in a group to one side. Hmmm. Where I have seen that before? They manage to shoe-horn the image of him slaying a minotaur in a labyrinth into the film about halfway through, though I honestly don't know why they bothered.
Oo, rant. I'm supposed to be talking about the music. Relentless, mostly bombastic and utterly unmemorable. The musical highlight was the Müller yoghurt advert before the film began, where all the people on screen are gradually transformed into classic cartoon characters having a wonderful time, to a witty pastiche of the main themes from Pirates of the Caribbean and Galaxy Quest. Full of wünderful stuff, as the tag line said. I should have gone home after the trailers.
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