Immortals

Immortals

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Immortals and unbelievably, the movie did not even live up to those low expectations.  I didn't ask for much.  I just wanted something that looked cool and maybe had a fun fight or two.  That's not too much to ask for with director Tarsem Singh (The Cell), who has a keen eye for the visually stunning.  But right off the bat, I was disappointed.  Even though the movie's art direction seems like it would be cool, I couldn't tell because it is buried under murky photography and is hard to see.  Tarsem also pushes the costumes a bit too far - case in point, please refer to Ares' hat in the above picture.

As for the story, it is standard mythological fare.  King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) wants to release the evil Titans who are trapped in Mount Tartarus, thus destroying the Olympian gods and pretty much bringing about the end of the world.  The gods, led by Zeus (Luke Evans) need to stop him, but don't want to interfere because they think the humans have to exercise their free will or some nonsense like that.  Speaking of the humans, our heroes include Theseus (Henry Cavill), a beautiful oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto), and a random thief Stavros (Stephen Dorff).  Together, they will take us on a classic adventure!

Except it is not so classic.  The movie wasn't good when I was watching it and it got worse the more I thought about it.  I don't even know where to begin with some of the stupidity in this movie.  Unable to write objectively, maybe I will let the characters speak for me.  Be warned, MASSIVE SPOILERS below.  I plan on ruining the whole movie.

Hi, I'm the general of the Greek army.  So we totally have this problem.  This dude named Hyperion is totally like trying to attack Mount Tartarus and release the Titans.  And we have to go somewhere safe because I don't think our remote mountain village is safe enough, even though the only way in is through a single rocky path that can easily be defended by a blind, one-armed chipmunk and maybe an old lady for backup.  But no, it is totally not safe here.  I know - why don't we go to Mount Tartarus!  That's the last thing Hyperion would expect and there is a big wall there, so that's cool.

Hey, I'm Theseus.  Do you know the only thing that Hyperion needs to release the Titans is this awesome Epirus bow?  And I totally found it in this little cave in my easily defended remote mountain village where Hyperion will never find it.  But you know what?  Even though this bow is pretty much useless to me but super important to him, I think I will take it out of its hiding place and away from the easily defended remote mountain village because it looks nice and creates cool laser arrows.  And I am totally not going to walk into that obvious ambush.  Oh, bummer, I totally just walked into an ambush.

Hi, I'm Zeus.  Even though the Titans are my mortal enemies and unleashing them will bring about the end of the world, I am not going to let the other gods interfere with events below on earth.  In fact, I am so confidant that the kid Theseus is up to the task, that I am totally going to kill any of my fellow gods who try and help him...oh, snap!  My own children just helped him.  Theseus walked into an ambush, so my son Ares saved his life and my daughter Athena gave him super fast horses to catch Hyperion before he can attack Mount Tartarus.  I guess I am going to have to execute Ares with my slow motion fire whip.  Not a big deal; I don't really even have a need for a God of War because I am that confidant that Theseus will kick butt.  So, Ares can die.  But I will let Athena live because she's blond and her hat doesn't intimidate me.  And Theseus can keep those lightning fast horses because that's totally not interfering at all...

So...Zeus here again.  Theseus totally wasn't up to the task.  Hyperion fired the Epirus bow and released the Titans from their prison.  And now these goofy bastards are running around in circles like over-caffeinated teenagers after prom, and it is up to me and my other four gods to fight them now.  I totally could have used a God of War right about now.  Damn it.  

Last entry - Zeus.  So I lost all three of my fellow god buddies, but managed to defeat all the Titans. But not really!  Fooled you!  I am actually floating in the clouds, waging an eternal battle against millions of Titans.  But no worries, because I also now have millions of other good guy gods who just magically happen to be hanging out in the clouds, helping me out.  But you know what I just realized, I blew this whole problem out of proportion to begin with.  Because releasing the Titans totally didn't bring about the end of the world.  I know that because I just visited Theseus' son and he's a cute, little kid living in a remote little mountain village whose main square is overwhelmed by a giant plastic statue of his dad.  So the world is at peace.  And I am up here in the heavens, fighting a war that will last forever because I am stupid.  Zeus out.

Wait, I know what you are thinking, "James, the bad guys win?" Yes, yes, they kind of do.  But you know, it doesn't even matter because it has NO IMPACT in the world whatsoever.  We even have inspiring, happy ending ending music to trick us into thinking the good guys won.  But they didn't. So why the hell did they even make this movie?

Sure, there are a few moments here that I like.  I like that Tarsem depicts the gods as all young and beautiful (because let's face it, if you were a god, wouldn't you want to make yourself buff for all eternity?).  Luke Evans and Mickey Rourke seem to be having fun.  And the final fight between Theseus and Hyperion looked like it could have been pretty brutal if the camera had held still for a second.  But I don't want to talk about the good moments because they are few and far between and it all adds up to nothing.  This is a big, fat turd.  And the more I think about it, the more stinky it gets.

MVP:
I guess Luke Evans.  Despite the fact that the story forces Zeus to do something stupid time and time again, Evans approaches the role with enough dignity that I almost believe his actions.  Almost.  Evans is believable if his actions are not.  And he does approach the role with a charismatic physicality that is probably more in line with mythology than the old, wizened Zeus we normally see in movies.  I actually liked Evans a lot and hope he gets more work, despite this movie.

BEST LINE:
Ugh, do I have to think of one?  Bleah.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Clash of the Titans

It is time to revisit one of the great movies of my childhood. I was a bit afraid to sit down and re-watch 1981's Clash of the Titans. As I kid, I thought it was fantastic. But as an adult, having not seen the movie in a decade, would I still like it?

Thankfully, yes. Let me first be upfront and say that Clash of the Titans is not necessarily a good movie. It's script is silly, the acting is often wooden, and I have to give a special shoutout of hatred for BoBo the mechanical owl, who is incredibly dumb (and a clear ripoff of R2D2).

But there is a goofy, nostalgic charm to the picture. It's just a fun little adventure, riffing on Greek mythology and trying sincerely to just entertain. For those who haven't seen it, Harry Hamlin stars as Perseus, a Greek prince who must save a beautiful princess named Andromeda (Judi Bowker) from being sacrificed to a sea monster called The Kraken. Along the way, he gets help from the a playwright (Burgess Meredith), that stupid metal owl, and the winged horse Pegasus. He fights many of the great monsters of mythology, including most famously the Gorgon, Medusa, whose gaze can turn men to stone.

I will admit, I'm biased. If I was watching the movie now, for the first time, I might think it was lame. But I still enjoy it, even in its lamer parts! It brings back my childhood. This is the movie that first introduced me to Greek mythology, a love affair that continues to this day. And those images that entranced me as a child have aged well - Perseus flashing his magic sword in the sun, the Kraken swimming underneath its massive submerged gate, Charon the Ferryman, the destruction of Argos, Andromeda's cuteness, the heroic music score, and Perseus' badass bearded friend (I never knew his name, but he's a badass and has a beard) swatting away the flies while someone is being burned at the stake in the background. Those moments retain their magic and are probably the reason why I will show my kids this movie someday (believe it or not, even with the stake-burning, the movie IS appropriate for most kids!).

If I had a complaint, its that the scenes in Olympus with the gods don't work at all. I know they are important from a mythical standpoint, showing how the Olympian gods idly fool with the destinies of those pesky humans. But even as a kid, I was intensely bored by the whole thing. It was just a bunch of old people in togas talking. Now as an adult, I can recognize the amazing cast of actors playing the Olympians - Laurence Olivier, Jack Gwillum, Ursula Andress, Pat Roach, Maggie Smith - and yet I am still intensely bored. The director found a way to make Olivier boring. I didn't think it was possible.

But these scenes are few and far between. The rest are silly, entertaining goodness. If you've never seen it before, you may not want to. You won't appreciate it. For the rest of us, dig in.

MVP: Medusa (and producer/creature animator Ray Harryhausen). What a brilliant piece of character design, filming and editing - the Medusa segment is the one part of the movie that wholly raises above its roots, and becomes something different - a dark and gloomy sequence that is genuinely suspenseful and terrifying, with superb character animation, terrific lighting, spot-on editing and acting, and brilliant sound design (Medusa's tail rattling is the primary sound element of the entire scene. It is brilliantly unsettling). The sequence is easily the best part of Clash of the Titans and it one of the crowning moments of Harryhausen's carrer.

BEST LINE: "Release the Kraken!"

TRIVIA: The Dioskilos, the two-headed dogs that Perseus fights, did not exist in Greek mythology. The creatures are based on Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the Gates of Hades. When asked why he didn't include the third head, Harryhausen said it would be too much work to animate the extra wolf's head. Not worth it.

More Musings on Troy

More Musings on Troy

First off - spoiler alert!

So there are a few other items I wanted to discuss from Wolfgang Peterson's Troy from 2004. As I wrote my review earlier, the movie was a disappointment overall. When it worked, it was quite good. Unfortunately, there were just as many moments that did not work, and many of them are major problems.

There have been many criticisms leveled against Troy, some deserved and some not. I would like to defend the movie against some of these unfair criticisms.

1) The Gods are the most important part of The Iliad. Where the heck are the Gods in this movie?

The first misconception is that Troy is even an adaptation of Homer's The Iliad. It isn't. You could never make a movie of The Iliad because it only tells a tiny fraction of the Trojan War, a period of just a few weeks during the vast 10-year long conflict. The war doesn't begin in the Iliad. Troy doesn't fall in the Iliad. There is no Trojan Horse in the Iliad. Achilles is not famously killed with the arrow in the heel in the Iliad. The Iliad is ONLY the story of the events that directly lead to the epic Hector vs. Achilles duel. That's it. So let me clear that up right away.

People argue that without the gods, the whole story of the Trojan War is meaningless. To which I have to ask - why? The gods are important to the myth of the Trojan War, but that is not the story that Troy is trying to tell. Troy is trying to tell a plausible story that over thousands of years could have become the myth. I do agree that the involvement of the gods is important to the myth itself and does provide some wonderful thought-provoking themes about the nature of free will and what it means to be a human being. All very interesting material, but hardly necessary. What is essential to this tale is love - Achilles and Patrocles, Hector and Andromache, and especially that of Helen and Paris, who choose love over politics and bring about the destruction of a civilization because of it. Pride is also an essential theme. Hubris, the blind and haughty pride that has brought down many a hero and villain is on full display in both the myth and the movie. It is Agamemnon's hubris that insults and isolates Achilles so he refuses to fight, it is Troy's hubris that they can never lose a battle that leads to their downfall. That is much more important to the core story.

So why are the gods needed? Someday someone will adapt the myth into a film, and realize its impossible because the scenes in Olympus don't work in a film medium. It would be an hour of debating free will. Interesting to read. Boring to watch. I'd rather watch the war itself, thank you very much.

2) The acting stinks!

Overall, I have to disagree again. Critics singled out Eric Bana, Peter O'Toole, and Sean Bean as giving good performances, but every one else was a target. There are some weaker performances in the movie, I will admit that (for example, Saffron Burrows, whose acting in this movie consists of various combinations of weeping and shaking). But I want to defend the rest of the cast. Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox are overacting as villainous brothers Menelaus and Agamemnon, but who cares? These are larger than life characters and they need to be played large. Personally, I enjoyed watching the two of them trying to chew apart every scene they were in. Orlando Bloom caught a lot of heat for a moony, whiny and annoying performance, but wait a minute - is that fair? Paris is moony, whiny and annoying. The fact that you hate Paris in this movie just means Orlando Bloom was doing his job effectively. And how about Brad Pitt as Achilles? Critics called his performance the epitome of Hollywood pretty boy miscasting. But I actually think that is what you need in this role. Achilles doesn't need to be a good actor; he needs old school Hollywood charisma. I don't care if he's one dimensional. I just want him to be charismatic chiseled weapon of destruction. Brad Pitt brings that to the movie. If his dialogue delivery is a little flat in a few scenes, he looks and moves every inch like Achilles. And in every scene with Brad Pitt, your eyes are naturally drawn to him. That is what you need in Achilles. He is the greatest warrior in all of literature.

I've been hearing these two criticisms unfairly leveled against Troy for years, so I just wanted to speak up in the film's defense. But I don't want to defend the film too much as it has some very big problems. Like below:

1) There is only so much you should change the legend!

If you are adapting an old tale, re-envisioning or updating it, there are certain things that can and cannot be changed. If you want to kill certain characters who are supposed to live, or visa versa, that's okay. I'm not a stickler for the details. But Troy goes too far. The city of Troy falls. Paris dies. Helen goes back to Greece. That's the whole point. The story of Paris and Helen cannot end well  They are responsible for the destruction of their city and the deaths of thousands of their people. They simply can not live happily ever after. So when Paris and Helen escape to the mountains, are we supposed to be happy for them while the city is burned and pillaged? What the hell?

The confusing thing is that they even set up Paris' death nicely. Before running into the city to save his cousin, Paris hands a young boy named Aeneas the Sword of Troy, saying so long as a Trojan holds this sword, her people will have a future. Since in the legend, Aeneas went on to lead the Trojan survivors to Italy and that his descendants founded Rome, I thought this was a cool little bit. But when Paris survives and escapes with everyone else, I had to wonder what was the point of the whole Aeneas scene? Now its just random and pointless.

2) Helen

She is partially responsible for starting the war, after all. But after the first half of the film, where all she does is mope, she largely vanishes. Nobody liked Helen in this movie, and a lot of people blamed Diane Kruger's acting. I think she is just badly written and not given anything to do. Playing the most beautiful woman in history is an impossible task in of itself. But add that to filmmakers who don't really know what to do with you after the opening act...poor Kruger was being set up as a target from the very beginning! What a wasted opportunity to play up the guilt, the horror that this conflict is her fault. They could and should have done something with that. They only hint at it once, in a beautifully done moment before Hector goes off to fight Achilles. Helen waits for him by the gate, weeping, because she knows that the best man in the city was about to be killed protecting her. It's a good moment, and the movie needed more of that.

3) Death of Patroclus

This is such a stupid moment! When Hector kills Patroclus, both armies stop fighting (as if all 10,000 men could have known this duel was happening) and get all depressed because the young man was killed. "That's enough killing for one day" and they all go home. What?? First of all, Patroclus isn't that young and was certainly not any younger than half the other people getting slaughtered in the movie. We didn't stop fighting for any of those guys. I think the writers just didn't know how to end the scene. They wrote themselves into a corner and had to think of a way to end the fight before the Trojans won the battle. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but this scene is STUPID!

4) Patroclus and Achilles

Speaking of Patroclus, I think they missed a big opportunity. Patroclus was Achilles' friend, not his cousin. There is even some subtext that he is Achilles' lover. I think the studios got afraid because they didn't want their sexy leading man to be gay. What safer way to do that than turn his best friend/lover into his cousin? But how much more interesting would the scenes in Achilles' camp have been if they had kept that part of the story intact? What an interesting love triangle. Achilles falls in love with the Trojan priestess, Briseis, and rejects the war and prepares to return home. In doing this, he is not just rejecting his old life as a warrior but is rejecting the loved one who represents that life: Patroclus. In the movie, Patroclus is just some whiny kid who is bummed out because he never gets to fight. Wouldn't it be better if he sees Briseis as what she is, as a rival and a threat? Suddenly, Patroclus being killed by Hector takes on more meaning. It ignites Achilles, who unleashes his vengeance on the battlefield. Such fury makes more sense if it is the love of your life who has just been killed. I'm not saying that the filmmakers needed to go Brokeback Mountain in ancient Greece. If the studios were worried, they could have kept this subtle. But I think this decision to make Patroclus a cousin just smacks of marketing fears. Pity. I think they missed an opportunity for good drama!

Okay, my ramblings are over. Thanks for indulging! New review next time - the terrific Chinese film, Ip Man!

Troy: Director's Cut

Troy: Director's Cut

As a child, my mind was lost in myths, legends and history. I spent hours devouring the stories of Alexander the Great, King Arthur, and the Trojan War, my imagination completely captured. Unfortunately, in 2004, Hollywood managed to take all three of my childhood dreams and send them crashing back down to Earth. (I speak of Alexander, King Arthur, and Troy). Of the three, Troy was probably the best. When it worked, it truly did work. There are moments that really are grand epic fun. But when it was bad...oh, boy, was it bad. The worst part was that it just seemed sloppy. Strange shots, bad editing, and questionable plot decisions ruined what could have been a solid film.

But has the new Troy: Director's Cut solved these problems? Yes and no. Make no mistake - this is not Kingdom of Heaven, where the director's cut turned the film from an interesting failure to one of the best films of the year. The major problems with Troy remain. Some of the acting is goofy, characterizations are often lazy and one-dimensional, and all the major plotting problems are still there.

But make no mistake, those problems are not as noticeable because the film has gone through quite an upgrade. This film is longer than the theatrical version, but it actually feels shorter! That is because of subtle changes that director Wolfgang Peterson made, shifting the pacing of the film, fixing any sloppiness and providing a full color adjustment that makes the film much more vibrant and beautiful to look at. The theatrical cut dragged in a lot of places and its problems were glaring. The Director's Cut moves along so smoothly that the problems don't bother me quite so much. The added scenes add some necessary and welcome character development, especially for Sean Bean's wonderful Odysseus.

In almost every way, the Director's Cut is better. My one complaint is about the music, which most people won't notice. But since I love film scores, I have to complain! The score for Troy was a last minute replacement by James Horner (Braveheart) and he wrote, recorded and mixed the entire score in 13 days. Which is pretty impressive, even if the score isn't great. But it at least got the job done efficiently. But Peterson has stripped Horner's score almost entirely from the film. The one piece he did like, he re-uses about seventeen thousand times. Then he sprinkles in music from other movies like Planet of the Apes and Starship Troopers. The rest of the music, playing wall-to-wall during dialogue scenes that don't even need music sound like a chimp farting out notes on a Yamaha synthesizer. It is TERRIBLE! And horribly distracting to me. But hey, I admit it, I might be psycho about this kind of thing. So take this with a grain of salt...

Other than that, the Director's Cut is a definite improvement over the theatrical version. If you liked the movie before, you will probably love it now. If you thought it was okay, you might like it just a little bit more. But if you hated it, this version won't do anything to change your mind. To me, it is an improved, but still not great movie. It still doesn't live up to my childhood dreams, but at least it isn't destroying them. So that's my sum-up.

P.S. I have also written a review of James Horner's score to Troy. Check it out by going to SoundtrackDB!

MVP: Gotta give it to Sean Bean. I just really enjoyed the heck out of his performance as Odysseus. And he succeeds in giving life to this iconic character with not a lot to work with. I actually want them to make a sequel because I would love to see Sean Bean in The Odyssey, tackling sirens and sea monsters!

TRIVIA: Brad Pitt (who played Achilles) injured himself during the production of the film. Ironically, he injured his achilles tendon.

BEST LINE: (minor spoiler?) Priam: I loved my boy from the moment he opened his eyes until the moment you closed them."  On paper, this doesn't sound like much of a line, but you need to see its moving delivery!

OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Best Costume Design