Back in the futuristic year 2000, Tarsem Singh (sometimes known as just Tarsem) made a little movie with Jennifer Lopez called The Cell. I really hated that movie. True story. Because I hated that movie so much – which was just Marylin Manson music video imagery pretending to be a movie – I never saw Tarsem’s next film The Fall until several months ago. I was happily surprised to discover that The Fall is vastly superior to The Cell. But my hate for The Cell still burns hot beneath the surface, like the coal fires of Centralia, PA, so I’m not sure how to feel about Tarsem’s newest endeavor, Immortals, a Greek mythology actioner featuring Mickey Rourke in the most comically awfonderful helm I’ve ever seen — sort of an evil bunny with a Sarlacc maw. The film, well, let’s just watch the trailer…
So. Hmm. Yeah. It looks cool. But The Cell looked cool. Sucker Punch looked cool. Speaking of Suck Punch (see what I did there?!), the film stars our new Superman, Henry Cavill as Greek legend Theseus. Story goes: when the Titan Hyperion (Rourke) declares war on humanity, he quests for the Bow of Epirus. Created by Ares, the god of war, the bow which will allow Hyperion to free the rest of the Titans and take revenge on Mount Olympus. As is always the way, the gods need a mortal champion — Theseus (Cavill), is chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans) to wreck some shit. He is accompanied by the priestess Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and a slave (Stephen Dorff), to protect his homeland and save the gods. The film seems to play pretty fast and loose with Theseus’ myths, but whatever. It’s not like its based on a book or real life, so who gives a shit. Robert Maillet (the giant guy from Sherlock Holmes) is playing the coolest aspect of Theseus’ legend, the Minotaur, and I’m kinda surprised they didn’t throw a glimpse of the beast in the trailer.
Gotta say, I really can’t see Superman in Cavill here. Though maybe it is just the material. The “big speech” he gives in this trailer actually made me chuckle out loud it is so hacky-stupid. Rourke looks like he’s going to be a lot of fun here (I love that he looks at his nails after he cuts that woman’s throat), but this looks pretty rote otherwise. Although I did enjoy the old-tech riff on the Iron Man multi-kill at the very end.