IMMORTALS (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, metaphysical*

Tarsem Singh's IMMORTALS must make a little more effort [than WRATH OF THE TITANS] to provide a setup, for it’s presenting its first-time take on the adventures of the hero Theseus, who like Perseus finds himself caught between a clash of gods and Titans. However, the script provides little in the way of continuity or explication, so that as with WRATH the audience gets what amounts to a big-screen video game.

Most of the scenes in IMMORTALS Theseus feel cribbed either from Letterier’s CLASH or from Zack Snyder’s 300. Theseus—who in Greek mythology was the son of a mortal woman by Poseidon—is simply a mortal bastard who may or may not have been sired by a god. In the humble village where he is raised, the other peasants believe him the sire of soldiers who raped his mother. Theseus’ mother is a believer in the gods while her son is a skeptic. And though she’s right about the existence of the gods, in contrast to the real myths the gods barely interact with mortals. Zeus takes an interest in Theseus for his courage and fearlessness. But Zeus has a strict non-interference policy: gods are not supposed to interfere in the affairs of mortals unless the gods face danger from the peril of the Titans.

Hyperion, leader of a band of non-Greeks given the odd name of “Heraklions,” wishes to lay waste to the Greek nation not only by force of mortal arms but also by releasing the Titans from their rocky tomb. To do this he needs a magical god-weapon called the Bow of Epirus—supposedly forged by Herakles, who in real myth wasn’t exactly known for blacksmithing—with which he can blast open the Titans’ prison. One of Hyperion’s forays takes him to Theseus’ village, where he cuts the throat of the hero’s mother and sentences Theseus to the salt mines. In essence he becomes a symbolic “evil father” like the figure of Acrisius/Calibos in CLASH. However, Hyperion’s obsession with destroying the Greeks is given no more depth than the Persians’ lust for conquest in the Snyder 300.

Transitions take place with no regard for continuity. The oracle Phaedra—love-interest to Theseus, who somehow meets her on his way to the salt-mines—advises Thesesus to venerate his dead mother by going back to the village and burying his mother. This is one of the few sequences where the characters seem like archaic Greeks, reminding one of the Greek horror toward leaving the dead unburied seen in ANTIGONE. But the only real reason the sequence exists is so that he can discover the Epirus Bow hidden in a big rock inside the burial crypt. Who put it there? Was it supposed to be a test of Theseus’faith, which he passed by burying his mother? The script doesn’t bother to say.

Similarly, though logically one might expect Zeus to want to blast with lightning an impious mortal for seeking to free the Titans, instead Zeus wants Theseus to do the deed without help from the gods. To that end Zeus will even kill his own deific family members if they transgress his non-interference policy, though conveniently for the script, Zeus lets some of the gods help Theseus out of tough spots before the thunder-god lays down the law. This seems like a long way to go just to see a particular mortal accomplish his heroic goals—though to be sure, this is in line with IMMORTALS’ clumsy theme: that heroes’ glorious deeds are the only true source of “immortality.”

At some point Hyperion gets the Epirus Bow and approaches the walled city that bars his way to the Titans’ prison. Hyperion and Theseus face off in a pre-battle negotiation of terms, during which Hyperion plays Darth Vader and invites the hero to come over to his dark side, without success. The city’s ruling council is filled with the usual prating politicians seen in 300, and Theseus is forced to override them in order to lead the soldiers into battle with Hyperion’s forces. The battle even employs a version of the Spartan “hot gates” strategy from the Snyder film.

There follows a big battle involving mortals, gods and Titans, but Singh takes a mechanical approach to the battles, apparently emulating 300’s similar fight-choreography. For me this is the polar opposite of the kind of visceral thrills adventure-films should offer, and Singh succeds in this department even less than Zack Snyder in 300.

IMMORTALS outclasses WRATH in making some attempt at a theme. But the later film bungles it so badly that the comparison becomes moot.