DVD Review: Immortals (2011)

Every so often, some conceited soul who fancies his or herself (though usually his) a filmmaker whips up a bloated, boring, harebrained sword and sandal spectacle that succeeds in employing a heap of computer graphics majors and actors fraught with a dwindling bank account. In 2000, it was Ridley Scott’s Gladiator — a movie that somehow became a hit. In 2006, 300 introduced moviegoers to the lush, vast plains of CGI-dom and the barely coherent screaming of Gerard Butler. There was also that stupid, unnecessary Clash of the Titans remake that made the original look like a classic.

Then, in 2011, we were treated to the appalling peplum presentation of Immortals, as brought to us by the director of The Cell (dear God, no!) and written by two brothers who failed to adequately research actual Geek mythology. The uninspired tale finds mortal warrior Theseus (Henry Cavill) chosen by Zeus himself (Luke Evans, who starts out as John Hurt) to defeat the bad guy: King Hyperion, who is portrayed by a very embarrassed-looking Mickey Rourke. Stephen Dorff, Freida Pinto, and Isabel Lucas are among the other actors who ashamedly added this forgettable fantasy flick to their résumés.

In a nutshell, Immortals is a sack of dog feces that has been left on your doorstep and is frantically searching for a match. It’s like a gummi sour popper sandwich with extra mayonnaise that has been left out in the sun for a day and a half. Between the oodles of ugly CGI, painful anachronisms (note how surprisingly modern the villages of 1228 BC are), the butchery of classic mythology, awful acting, and general inconsistency of speech patterns, Immortals offers up little else to even take a gander at — unless you’re only watching the movie just to look at some eye candy, that is.

Of course, if that’s the reason you’re watching Immortals, you might want to consider taking a class on film. Or, a the very least, go out and rent a good ol’ fashioned skin flick — at least you’ll get your money’s worth that way. Personally, I’ll stick to a classic Italian-made spectacle like Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World.

Released to theaters on 11/11/11 (just to make it appear to be “cool,” no doubt), Immortals has found its way to home video to terrorize anew via Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment in a low-key DVD release that includes a shoddily-assembled five-minute featurette about real mythology, a couple of deleted scenes, and trailers for this and other Fox titles.

In short: skip it. For the love of Zeus and all the other Olympians whose names and histories have been eviscerated in this dreadful yarn, skip it.