Immortals hails from one of the most visionary directors working today, Tarsem Singh. He and the cast of the movie invaded Hall H with their new epically-stylized action film about a lowly stone cutter taking on a mighty king questing for immortality. Throw in some gods, titans, a magic bow, some really sweet visuals and you have one of the most anticipated movies of 2011. And yes, it’s in 3D. The movie’s stars Henry Cavill, Stephen Dorff, Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, and Kellan Lutz were at the panel and divulged a slew of fun info about the film!
Tarsem came out and immediately says that the tone of the film is much darker than the trailer leads you to believe. And the footage justifies that. We saw an epic montage of imagery that included Cavill looking buff (see right) and kicking all kinds of ass but still managing to get his ass kicked. A massive tidal wave rocks an ancient city; it must be Lutz’ Poseidon to blame. Cavill does battle with a true brute of a demigod, and I can’t wait to see that. Frieda Pinto looks elegant in character, and Mickey Rourke (as usual) looks like a true bad-ass.
There’s plenty of slo-mo fight scenes, which caused me to groan just a bit, but there’s also some lightening-quick choreography that compensates for that. Lots of cool weapons used as well, and they are wielded in all kinds of ways – from chopping enemies in half to beheadings to castrations and everything in between. I’m particularly stoked about the color design: gold costumes against grey backgrounds make the characters pop on screen so well.
What I’m mostly taking away from this panel is the scale of the film. Huge environments, exterior and interiors, that included Evans bringing down an entire mountain after an epic battle with an army of evil warriors. The best part? The sets are largely practical, unlike 300. The worst? Tarsem says that he thinks of the visual aspects of the story first before the script, and that worries me because it’s clear that the movie looks great, but too often a weak screenplay makes it all for not. Still, I think the canvas alone will fill seats in the theaters.
Immortals slashes its way into theaters on November 11.
