Superman and Zeus (Immortals, 2011)

Immortals_PosterImmortals begins with an ominous dream in which a man uses a mythic bow to free the Titans who were locked away by the gods.  We are told how the gods defeated the titans, and in the midst of their battle the powerful Epirus Bow was lost.  Now, eons later, the vicious King Hyperion seeks to find the bow and set free the Titans, allowing him to reign destruction across the earth.

A seaside village is under threat from Hyperion’s armies, hastened when a soldier betrays them.  This results in Hyperion killing the mother of peasant Theseus. Unknown to anyone, including Theseus himself, he was trained as a warrior by Zeus himself (in the guise of an elderly man).  Theseus is hopeless and enslaved, until Phaedra, the virgin oracle, seeks his help in escaping the grasp of Hyperion.  Their mission becomes that of stopping Hyperion from freeing the Titans.

The gods of Olympus are not playing games here, and in a way the film kind of inverts the Clash of the Titans remake.  Instead of the gods demanding the faith of men, here, Zeus implores the other gods to follow his lead and have faith in mankind.  They have a rule against direct interference (Zeus’ loophole for helping Theseus was that he did not use his god state, but rather did his work in the form of a human). The other gods are more impatient, wanting to intervene directly.

The film does not hold very tightly to the myths of Theseus (the mythical founder of Athens). This is not to say those stories go unacknowledged.  But they occur more as brief incidentals, or serve other purposes than the original tales.

Immortals is quite a visually stunning film. This is no surprise, coming from director Tarsem Singh, known for films like the Fall and the Cell. An aesthetic of beauty stands above practicality with wild armor and flowing robes filling the screen.

And while it uses a similar style to films like Zak Snyder’s 300, it feels very much like it is truly the vision of it’s director, rather than following in a popular style.  The gods move in a unique way, with their golden armor creating motion trails, and while they are moving through fights quickly, their blows strike the targets in slow motion (simultaneously).  And yet, the film ends up feeling more like eye-candy than a real story.  Everything is so pretty to look at and yet, feels incredibly empty.

 

Strike While the Iron Is Hot (Iron Man 2, 2010)

iron-man-2-posterSeriously…Iron Man 2… not Invincible Iron Man???  What a miss…

Anyways, The first Iron Man was a surprise hit.  Marvel was building towards their shared movie universe and did not want to mess that up.  So, they stuck to their guns.  Favreau was back to direct Downey Jr. and the entire cast that survived made it back for the sequel.

Well, almost everyone.  Terrence Howard tried to renegotiate his fee, and Marvel was not interested…so they asked him to not let the door hit him on the ass and brought in Don Cheadle.  I was pretty torn.  I thought Howard did well and was likeable as Jim Rhodes.  On the other hand?  Love Don Cheadle.

One of the harder parts of Iron Man is his rogues gallery. He fights a lot of armored guys.  That can get repetitive…on the other hand, you have guys like the Mandarin.  A Magical Asian.  So they went with…um…Whiplash.  I wondered how they could make that interesting  They kind of succeeded.

Whiplash is obsessed with Stark because he feels Stark’s father betrayed his father.  The other villain in the film is Tony’s weaker competitor, Justin Hammer.  Hammer is trying to give the government the same kind of technology Stark has.  Ultimately they achieve it by using Whiplash, who has knowledge of Tony’s tech..  The film also introduces us to Natasha Romanoff, also known as the the Black Widow.  Whiplash is freed from the authorities by Hammer who wants to use his expertise.  Hammer is cocky, but he he is less competent than Tony or Whiplash, who double crosses Hammer to get his revenge on Tony.

There is a lot to like here.  But the best stuff is almost all at the end.  We get Stark and Rhodey fighting together against Hammer’s drones, Black Widow kicking butt and just a lot of cool stuff.  But at times, it feels like it is taking forever to get there.  This film has the exact opposite issue of the first film.  The build up is not all that involving as an audience member, but the ending is great.

Again, the chemistry between Downey and Paltrow is magnetic.  And Cheadle slides right into the role like he was always there.  Johansson gives us just a taste of the character to come, and it is great.  Rockwell is wonderfully sleazy as Justin Hammer.  Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury is established as a major player tying the Marvel Cinematic Universe together.

Iron Man 2 is not quite the follow up I would have hoped for, but it would not sink the franchise or the MCU either.   It is one of the weakr entries, but strong enough to not be totally dismissed.

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑