'Immortals' review

Henry Cavill and Stephen Dorff (Credit: Jan Thijs/Relativity)

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In the year 1228 B.C., madman King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) has a plan to unearth the Titans to destroy the gods of Olympus, but he’ll have to get through noble peasant warrior Theseus (Henry Cavill) first. Aided by alluring virgin oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and sly thief Stavros (Stephen Dorff), Theseus faces his destiny under the watchful, but weirdly unhelpful, eye of Zeus (Luke Evans).

The buzz: As the marketing proudly declares, “Immortals” is “from the producers of ‘300’,” suggesting audiences are in for another uniquely stylish and extremely bloody period epic. Although he had nothing to do with “300,” director Tarsem Singh established his outré visual sense with the gory serial killer thriller “The Cell” and the more sensitive fantasy adventure “The Fall.”

The verdict: In a movie full of elaborate fight scenes, the biggest battle is between eye-popping visuals and eye-rolling dialogue. While “Immortals” is often stunningly beautiful, the lackluster narrative leads to too many fussily designed moments when it feels like Tarsem is directing a painting and not a film. You’ll want to frame his work, not watch, listen to and experience the nearly two hours of merely adequate performances and childish storytelling that comes with it. In an effort to keep the target fanboy audience entertained, “Immortals” piles on violence to increasingly numbing effect—there’s throat slashing, eye gouging, tongue cutting and the most graphic head splatterings since “Scanners.” And that’s all before an epic finale demonstrates every way to slice and dice supposedly “immortal” beings. As a brief reprieve from the nonsensical blood and guts, the screenplay by brothers Vlas and Charley Parlapanides allows for one gratuitous nude scene featuring Pinto, who is lovely but entirely objectified in her silly role. Not that anyone is permitted multiple dimensions in this cast of cardboard characters. Even Rourke barely musters the energy to bring any real menace to his vile villain. After two films that provided at least a semblance of substance to match his style, it’s a shame Tarsem went to such effort crafting lavish imagery for material so instantly forgettable.

Did you know? Evans has previous experience as Greek god, he played Apollo in the recent “Clash of the Titans.”

“Immortals” is also playing in 2D. Find local showtimes here.

Follow Metromix's Geoff Berkshire on Twitter: @geoffberkshire