Review: Immortals (2011) shares the politics of 300, the plot of Clash of the Titans, and negates its worth as 3D spectacle by looking glorious in 2D.

Immortals

2011
110 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

While Immortals has been advertised as a knock-off of 300, it's actually pretty much a variation on Clash of the Titans through-and-through.  In fact, the only real similarity it shares with Zack Snyder's 2007 blockbuster is its (unintentional?) racism and its rather explicit right-wing politics.  Like 300, the film involves a very white guy (Henry Cavill, who will indeed make a fine Clark Kent in two years) who does battle with another white guy (Mickey Rourke, in arguably better form than he's been in anything since The Wrestler) who is pissed off at the Greek gods because his wife and child slowly died of some unnamed illness.  Fair enough, but at the end of the movie (yes, there will be spoilers, even generic ones...) we get a big (and very impressive) battle between the Greek gods and the evil Titans.  The Greek gods are dressed in gold armor and are as Anglo-Saxon as can be (played by Luke Evans and Isabel Lucas, among others) while the Titans are well, savage humanoid monsters with really dark skin.  So we get a climactic battle between angelic white people and demonic black men.  Subtle...

Relativity releases a bunch of photos, but no title, for their Snow White film.

I don't usually post about every photo from every movie, but Relativity was nice enough to send me a batch of photos all in one handy file, so why not?  Anyway, we get glances at Lily Collins as Snow White, Julia Roberts as 'the Wicked Queen', Arnie Hammer as 'the Prince', and all seven dwarves.  While most of the pictures try to sell the 'fairy-tale beauty' and/or 'virginal innocence' of the title character, the best picture is the cast photo above.  Not only is Collins actually smiling, there is a sense of playful wickedness that is lacking from the other photos.  Obviously the Tarsem Singh project will be visually scrumptious, and I'm all for films that actually have bright and bold colors, but I still fear for an industry that feels the need to have three (3!) Snow White projects coming out over the next year.  Anyway, the other bazillion photos are after the jump.  Enjoy.

Scott Mendelson

Yay! Relativity plans needless reboot of The Crow, just in time to exploit the 20th anniversary of Brandon Lee's death!

There have been rumblings for years, but rumor became official news yesterday, as Relativity announced they were indeed planning a reboot of The Crow and that 28 Weeks Later director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was on board to direct. Um, yay? We have a bleak and relentlessly violent comic book that was already adapted into a bleak and relentlessly violent film. So unless they are going to redo The Crow with a tone similar to The Phantom (slam evil!), I really don't see the point in rehashing the same story yet again. Yes, this is a perfect example of the 'must reboot everything that someone liked from the last 30 years' meme that has gripped the industry over the last couple years, but there is another uglier undertone to this particular reboot. Guess what famous Hollywood death is approaching its 20th anniversary?