Immortals – 3D

Posted May 25, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Having lost faith in the Gods after losing his family, King Hyperion has set it upon himself to bring death and destruction to mankind, conquer the world, and get his hands on the bow of Epirus with which he wants to set free the Titans who he can use to slay the Gods once and for all.

Bound by laws set up by themselves, the Gods are unable to intervene in man’s conflict in their godly state, but Zeus – in the form of an old man – has been secretly training a peasant’s son called Theseus to stand up and lead his people in the war against Hyperion.

With Hyperion marching towards Mount Tartaros for the final battle, Theseus is mankind’s last hope against the liberation of the dreaded Titans.

Sound and Vision:
For a big budget production like Immortals, you would expect impeccable image quality, but unfortunately that’s not what we get. The black levels are deep in certain scenes, but also often look more like dark grey. The scenes at Mount Olympus (we’re guessing) have the Gods stand out with thick black edges around their legs. There’s also some aliasing and banding present. The movie was not natively shot in 3D but we’re wondering whether the 3D process tampered with 2D image quality. On the 3D side of things, we couldn’t test this ourselves, but we’ve heard that the dark nature of the movie doesn’t really help bringing forth details when watching it in 3D and that some people actually had to lift their glasses to get a better view of what’s going on. From what we hear, the 3D presentation disappoints.

The soundtrack is very impressive when it comes to being loud. If that’s what you like, you’ll just love Immortals. Especially the large fight scenes stand out with lots of use of surround speakers and subwoofer. Also the music and sound effects are bombastic and this is one track where you might get the urge to turn the volume down a few nobs. Dialogue then is crystal clear and never gets overblown by the rest of the sound.
However. The track isn’t flawless. Things are so loud that you get the feeling it isn’t natural anymore and there’s a lack of detail. Still, if you just want to enjoy lots of spectacle, Immortals delivers.

Extras:
– Trailer
– Deleted Scenes
– No Myth
– Putting it all together

Conclusion:
Immortals is as good as it is bad.

Its story doesn’t make sense one bit. Hyperion goes out on an all-out war to become a legend and get rid of the Gods who can’t intervene until something divine steps up. However, they do intervene whenever it’s really necessary and then get punished by Zeus for doing so. Meanwhile, Zeus has been training a peasant called Theseus for years to stand up against Hyperion when the time comes but that’s ok as he does it in the form of an old man and not as his divine self. Theseus – although trained – fails in just about any mission he needs to complete, but as he ends up doing the right thing he does manage to get a godly and legendary state. Why? Nobody seems to know. And something also nobody seems to know is why Hyperion lets a traitor live so he can give information while the information he actually provides doesn’t help much either. Yup, the storyline is a total mess across the board.

Still, I couldn’t care less. And that’s because I like big blockbuster movies that feature large armies, a great bad guy and some stupid action scenes that pop off the screen, and that’s where Immortals shines. Mickey Rourke is excellent as Hyperion, Henry Cavill shows he’s perfect as an action hero, and Stephen Dorff makes for a nice sidekick while John Hurt’s voice is great as a voice-over that tries to give some additional background. Immortals has all the right pieces to put forth a great action flick, even if it lacks depth or doesn’t make sense when you come to think about it. Just sit back, relax and enjoy watching.

I do have to add that when watching the trailer, my expectations were very low. Mickey Rourke looked like a total idiot wearing a silly helmet and focus seemed to be too much on some stupid 3D effects so this might have something to do with me actually liking the end result. Still, if you manage to turn your brain off, Immortals is sure to deliver a fun viewing experience.

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