By Jason Apuzzo. • Immortals is upon us, opening this Friday in 3D. As LFM readers know, I love the Sword & Sandal genre – it might actually be my favorite type of movie, among the many that we discuss here at Libertas – and so I’m looking forward to seeing the film. I grew up on films like Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts, the Steve Reeves Hercules films, and Ben-Hur – so it takes absolutely no effort for me to get revved up about a film like this. Especially when there’s a Minotaur involved.
At the same time, based on how Immortals is being marketed, I’m a very long way from believing it’s going to be anything other than a vacuous exercise in style, a kind of Chanel commercial in togas. Having watched/read recent interviews (see here and here) with the film’s director, Tarsem Singh, I have no sense that the film has any kind of personal meaning for him or anybody else involved. Nor do I sense as yet that the film is anything other than a cash-in on the ongoing popularity of 300, from which it obviously draws its inspiration.
Part of this, I confess, has to do with the cast – none of whom is really grabbing my attention. Henry Cavill, who is currently shooting the forthcoming Superman reboot, is someone I haven’t seen before except in 2002’s The Count of Monte Cristo, a film that did nothing for me. He doesn’t look all that interesting, frankly. As for the rest of the cast – Stephen Dorff, Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz – I barely even know who these people are. And as far as the women in the film, Isabel Lucas was appealing enough in Red Dawn, and in the second Transformers movie as a sexually aggressive alien robot … but having her play Athena? The goddess of wisdom? That seems like quite a stretch, like something you’d see in a high school play – along with cardboard swords and paper-mache busts of Caesar. As for Freida Pinto, my sense is that her 15 minutes of fame are rapidly dwindling – prior to her inevitable cash-out three years from now as a Bond girl.
And then there’s Mickey Rourke, wearing what appear to be bronze bunny ears. I’m still trying to figure that one out.
So to say that I’m skeptical is an understatement. Still, the film’s costumes look good, and a great deal of thought seems to have been put into the visual design of the film – so we’ll see. In the meantime, you can read this incredibly inane interview with Tarsem, the cast members are also out talking about the film (Cavill, Rourke, Dorff), you can catch photos of the film and also 8 new clips. Also: the film has new TV spots (here and here), and a graphic novel is apparently on its way; also, the NY Times has a new feature on the film’s stylized violence.
• One of the best rumors of late in the Sword & Sandal world – indeed, one of the best movie rumors overall, of late – is that Steven Spielberg may direct Gods and Kings, an epic revolving around the life of Moses. I think this is a fabulous idea, assuming it can be made to happen. Deadline Hollywood reported recently that Spielberg has already read the Gods and Kings script by Michael Green and Stuart Hazeldine, and that the film would be made by Warner Brothers – likely with involvement from DreamWorks.
Where to begin? To have the director of Schindler’s List and Raiders of the Lost Ark take on the life of Moses would seem to make perfect sense. Spielberg would bring an old-fashioned, humanistic warmth and sentimentality to the project that very few directors have anymore, while also bringing a sense of spectacle, adventure and showmanship into the mix, as well. So for what it’s worth, I love the idea of him doing this – although I hope he’d change the title; Gods and Kings sounds a bit too anodyne, for my taste – or maybe just too close to Gods and Generals, I can’t tell. And anyway, aren’t we really talking about ‘Prophets and Pharaohs’ here?
Spielberg is also a major admirer of Cecil B. DeMille’s (watch any documentary on DeMille and you’ll always see Spielberg singing his praises), and I strongly suspect that Spielberg would love to have a DeMille-style religious/family epic of this sort under his belt to cement his legacy – the type of film that could be watched on holidays in perpetuity, much like DeMille’s Ten Commandments. Adjusted for inflation, incidentally, The Ten Commandments is still the #5 movie of all time at the box office, and would’ve made over a billion dollars domestically at today’s ticket prices.
Of course, I don’t know a lot about Gods and Kings; it could be that the screenwriters have opted for a less traditional take on the story than what I’m expecting. Be that as it may, it seems likely that with a project of this kind Spielberg would be swinging for the fences, trying to hit a major home run at the box office and also tell a story that would – in our increasingly fractious times – unite audiences worldwide.
Were I to guess, I’d say that he will likely do some kind of Moses film – although the script will need to match his personal agenda, more than the screenwriter’s. It’s conceivable that this project will remain in development for a while, if he doesn’t like what he sees initially, but I’d bet he’ll give the Moses story a try before too long.
By the way, do I dare mention the possibility of parting the Red Sea … in 3D?