Day: April 8, 2011

Sword & Sandal Report!: Immortals, Pompeii, Spartacus & The Latest on the ‘300’ Prequel

From "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena."

By Jason Apuzzo. Today we begin a new feature here at Libertas called The Sword & Sandal Report!, to complement our Invasion Alerts! and Cold War Updates! The Sword & Sandal Report! will cover the recent explosion of new films & TV shows dealing with the ancient world, and especially those depicting the worlds of ancient Greece, Rome and the Biblical lands – but also ‘sword and sorcery’-type projects that cover the Middle Ages, or alternative-style fantasy worlds. So dust off your sandals, grab that Roman-Gladius sword off the wall, strap on your helmet … and ladies, get ready to wear some loose clothing.

Or, as in the case of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on Starz, wear no clothing at all!

I’ve always loved sword-and-sandal movies or peplum, particularly of the Italian/Steve Reeves-Hercules variety, but also Hollywood-on-the-Tiber classics like Ben-Hur or Helen of Troy – or fantasy fare like Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts. If the purpose of the cinema is to ‘take us away’ to imaginative lands of the past, where heroes are always larger than life and nobler – and women lovelier and more virtuous (or more wicked and licentious, as your tastes demand) – then these films really accomplish that. In recent years. the peplum has been revived largely by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator from 2000, although the results since that time have admittedly been mixed – with a few hits like Frank Miller’s 300, and quite a few reekers like Oliver Stone’s Alexander.

Nonetheless, I’ve been wanting to do The Sword & Sandal Report! for some time, because – when done properly – these films not only convey a wonderful spirit of adventure, fantasy and romance, but they can also be great vehicles for communicating basic ideas about freedom. In fact, it’s often the case in the more modern sword-and-sandal films that the only idea conveyed whatsoever – in the midst of all the dust, carnage and orgiastic sex – is the basic need to fight for one’s freedom, an idea we champion wholeheartedly here at Libertas.

At the same time, sword-and-sandal movies are also an entertaining way to learn about history, even when these films diverge (often drastically) from established fact. And, as in the case of something like The Fall of the Roman Empire or El Cid, sword-and-sandal movies can also be among the more poetic and erudite films you will ever see. So let’s let get started …

• Very big news recently on the sword-and-sandal front was the early rollout of the media campaign for The Immortals, Tarsem Singh’s 3D take on the Theseus myth coming from Universal and Relativity Media in November. The film features Henry Cavill (the new Superman) as Theseus, and also Mickey Rourke, Freida Pinto, John Hurt and Transformers 2/Red Dawn hottie Isabel Lucas as the goddess Athena. Producer Mark Canton talks about the film here and here, new posters are out for the film here, plus Immortals is already getting the graphic novel treatment (see here), and Tarsem Singh and Isabel Lucas together talk about the film here and here.

Because this is a ‘Tarsem’ movie (he helmed the memorably perverse Jennifer Lopez thriller, The Cell), the early vibe I’m getting on this film is that it could be a hyper-violent, MTV-Zack Snyder-type mess, but we’ll see and I’ll hope for the best. Certainly the benefit of casting Mickey Rourke these days as a villain – in Immortals he plays the wicked King Hyperion of Crete – is that you don’t need to put any extra fright makeup on his face.

Isabel Lucas as Athena in "Immortals."

• While producing The Immortals, Mark Canton is also apparently prepping the 300 prequel with Zack Snyder and Frank Miller … which was initially going to be called Xerxes, but which is now lacking a title, as the title ‘Xerxes‘ has apparently been dropped. Why? Too many X’s? I think Xerxes is a great title – crisp, simple and dramatic. Were they worried no one would understand that it was a 300 prequel? Here’s hoping they don’t title the film 299 – or, worse yet, Themistocles.

In any case, Canton talks about his enthusiasm for the prequel here, and you can also see a full breakdown of the Xerxes storyline via Frank Miller here. On paper, it looks like the film could be genuinely spectacular.

• Robert Towne (Chinatown) has been hired to write Pompeii, Sony’s four-part miniseries based on the best-selling historical thriller by Robert Harris and produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, among others. Read the details about the project here, and Jeffrey Wells does a nice job of tracking the intriguing similarities between Harris’ Pompeii and Towne’s Chinatown here.

I haven’t read Harris’ Pompeii, although I’ve been to Pompeii itself – an otherworldly ghost town, meticulously preserved since its unearthing – and I’ve read Harris’ Imperium and enjoyed it a great deal. Because Ridley Scott’s involved, expect Pompeii to be big, ponderous, vaguely conspiratorial but otherwise respectable – with a boffo conclusion, as it were.

• Wrath of the Titans, sequel to the godawful remake of Clash of the Titans, has just begun shooting – and you can check out the official plot synopsis of that film here. Wrath was written by a completely different team of screenwriters than the first film, and is being helmed by Battle: Los Angeles director Jonathan Liebesman, so here’s hoping the new film is a lot better than the last. All I ask is that the new film not feature ‘heroic’ pseudo-Islamic suicide warriors (the ‘Djinn’), nor gratuitously insult Indian Hindus, and maybe include a few more women in the cast next time? Just a thought. Actually that’s three thoughts. Continue reading Sword & Sandal Report!: Immortals, Pompeii, Spartacus & The Latest on the ‘300’ Prequel

LFM Review: Cynical Hanna Takes Pot Shots at The CIA

Cate Blanchett in "Hanna."

By Joe Bendel. There are 102 stars on the memorial wall at CIA headquarters in Langley. Each one signifies an officer who died in the line of duty. In their latest film, director Joe Wright and screenwriters Seth Lochhead and David Farr add at least eight stars to their ranks, inviting the audience to give a bloodthirsty cheer for each and every execution. Hollywood has come a long way since we first met James Bond’s CIA colleague Felix Leiter, but it is difficult to think of a film more hostile to the men and women who serve in America’s intelligence services than Wright’s Hanna, which opens widely today.

Hanna was developed by the Agency to be a super-killer. However, when the program was canceled, vampy agent Marisa Wiegler was charged with disposing of the evidence—and you know what that means. Somehow though, Hanna’s presumed father Erik was able to whisk her away to a remote Finnish hideaway, where he continues her training, relentlessly attacking her like a fatherly version of Inspector Clouseau’s man-servant Cato.

When Hanna decides she is ready to face Wiegler, she activates Erik’s clunky CIA signal beacon, a piece of hardware perhaps developed by the same company that produces self-destruct switches for super villains’ lairs.  (This seems like an oddly passive strategy, considering Hanna and Erik spend about eighteen hours of the day stalking wild game or each other.)

Extracted simply so she can escape again, Hanna cuts through at least eight CIA personnel and a number of freelance contractors on her way to rendezvousing Erik. If that were not disturbing enough, dear old Erik also kills two completely innocent German cops, though their deaths are kept antiseptically off-screen.

As Hanna, Saorise Ronan is quite a credible young action star and can be excused for not fully appreciating the film’s ideological implications. For his part, Eric (with a “c”) Bana mostly broods sullenly as Erik (with a “k”). However,Cate Blanchett’s Wiegler looks and sounds like a stand-up comic’s bad impression of the late Ann Richards. At least she is allowed a personality. The rest of the film’s CIA personnel and associates are colorlessly interchangeable—mere meat for Hanna’s grinder, except for one conspicuously “swishy” contractor, a bizarre exercise stereotyping for this day and age.

To give due credit, Wright stages some energetic action sequences. Unfortunately, this also makes the film more effective as propaganda. It is only too easy to picture Hanna playing for months in countries across the Mideast eager to indulge in some cheap anti-Americanism. Indeed, following the revelation that YouTube clips of Brian De Palma’s anti-Iraq broadside Redacted helped spur the fatal shooting of two American servicemen at the Frankfurt airport, a film like Hanna can no longer be viewed in an ethical vacuum.

Frankly, Wright, Bana, Blanchett, and the rest of the grown-ups behind the film should be asked directly how they would explain their film to the family of CIA officer Johnny Michael Spann, the first official American casualty in Afghanistan – killed by duplicitous Taliban terrorists. What would they say to the family of William Buckley, the CIA Beirut station chief brutally tortured and murdered by Hezbollah? What would they say to the friends and family of anyone of the fallen 102?

Indeed, Hanna has serious issues far beyond its gaping logical holes and clunky performances. It is deeply cynical and profoundly disrespectful of the American intelligence officers who risk their lives on behalf of their country. Entirely problematic, Hanna should be avoided when it opens today.

Posted on April 8th, 2011 at 10:41am.