Immortal (DVD)

...a film.

Immortal is filmed in a mixture of styles taking elements of Sky captain and the world of tomorrow (excessive use of Green screen), the Animatrix (the first & best story animated reasonably well) & that 3D cartoon about football in the Sun newspaper (the breasts). Having seen and not enjoyed Sky captain I would have avoided this film had I known it was created in the same manner. Don't get me wrong, some of the background settings ...
...Blade runner feel to it that can only be recreated on a small budget by using these methods but the mixture of real actors & cartoon characters did make me feel as if I was watching 2 different films most of the way through.

Oh, and the dialogue, to give you an idea of how bad it was I will give you a quote from the first 5 minutes of the film. There's a pyramid floating above NY, 2 police helicopters are passing it as Horus pops his ... more

Plot Summary

It's the future, 2095, and a mysterious pyramid is floating above New York. Ancient Egyptian God Horus is given 7 days to spend on Earth before his immortality is taken away from him by Anubis. Horus spends his time trying to locate a blue skinned woman with memory loss so he can breed with her and continue to live in another form. To do this he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake as he searches for a suitable vessel to inhabit, finally settling on the rebel Nikopol who has recently escaped from detention.

THE STORY

Erm ………. other than the outline above, I couldnt really follow what was happening

Opinion

I picked this film up from a recommendation on the internet movie rental site I use. It was billed as an intriguing Sci-fi mystery with a good twist at the end - well, that taught me to trust just one source when choosing a film.

Immortal is filmed in a mixture of styles taking elements of Sky captain and the world of tomorrow (excessive use of Green screen), the Animatrix (the first & best story animated reasonably well) & that 3D cartoon about football in the Sun newspaper (the breasts). Having seen and not enjoyed Sky captain I would have avoided this film had I known it was created in the same manner. Don't get me wrong, some of the background settings looked amazing in both films. Immortal has a Brazil / Blade runner feel to it that can only be recreated on a small budget by using these methods but the mixture of real actors & cartoon characters did make me feel as if I was watching 2 different films most of the way through.

Oh, and the dialogue, to give you an idea of how bad it was I will give you a quote from the first 5 minutes of the film. There's a pyramid floating above NY, 2 police helicopters are passing it as Horus pops his head through the wall -

policeman #1 "what's that? "
policeman #2 "looks like a naked man with a birds head".

Pretty bad huh? Half way though the film there was an attempt to show that the authorities were a little bit concerned about the pyramid floating above the city when the Senator had a conversation with his secretary/helper/PA? about how it was all his fault and now Nikopol was on the loose he would be discovered for experimenting with mutants. Confused? This plotline popped up only briefly & left me wondering if I was following any of the story at all. Maybe I was suffering the same memory loss the blue girl was?

Its difficult to choose a favourite moment from the film as there are so many hilarious shockingly bad moments but heres my top 3

3) The baddie the senator sends after Nikopol is a lobster like hammerheaded shark that arrives in the apartment via the plug hole ( see the sh#t monster in Kevin Smiths Dogma)

2) At first glance the flying cars look as f they move in the same way as the cars in Blade Runner but they are in fact rollercoaster cars, gripping onto rails suspended in the skyline

1) Instead of playing chess, as Greek Gods would, the Egyptian Gods chose to play Monopoly

So if you want a Lifeforce, Aon Flux, 5th element, Brazil, Battle of the planets, Stargate film featuring all their worst aspects - this is the film for you.

3 pieces of Toblerone out of 10

Characters - as much as they are characters

Blue girl Jill has none of the charisma that endeared you to milla jovovich in the 5th element nor half the mystique of the blue vampire woman in Lifeforce (or the looks). Nothing is in anyway explained about why her memory has gone or who the mysterious bandage headed man supplying her with blue pills is. In fact the whole film rambles on but managed to hold my attention for so long because I expected some sort of explanation at the end (thanks previous reviewer, you owe me 102 minutes!!!)

Ramplings Elma really bears no relevance to the plot, after a little tinkering trying to understand Jill at the beginning of the film she plods through the script almost screaming for the film to be over. There was no breakthrough in any of the tests she did & Jill never trusted her enough to impart any information or explanation even to her, never mind us. She definitely shone through as the most experienced person on set but it wasn't enough of a script to really enable her to use her talents

Nikopol is probably one of the more straightforward characters in the film, an escaped terrorist whose body is inhabited by the spirit of Horus. He has to do the bidding of the God as he has had his damaged leg replaced by a piece of steel train track (lasered into place by Horus so he cant move without being possessed first)

John - the mysterious bandaged headed man who feeds Jill with blue pills. Jill continually claims to love John but with little or no memory for most of the film I struggle to see why or how she can love him (certainly not his looks as his head is covered for the entire duration of the film)

Director - Enki Bilal
Written by - Enki Bilal, Based on La Foire aux Immortels & La Femme Piege
Rated - 15 (some nudity, cartoon shootings)
Sound - DTS/ Dolby digital
Runtime - 102 minutes ( 1 hour 42 minutes )
Sci-Fi drama/ mild action / Cartoon

Cast

Jill Bioskop - Linda Hardy (le Souffleur)
Alcide Nikopol - Thomas Kretschmann (King Kong)
Elma Turner - Charlotte Rampling (Georgy Girl)
John - Frédéric Pierrot
Horus - Thomas M. Pollard
Froebe - Yann Collette
Jonas - Derrick Brenner

DVD Extras

Scene selection
Trailer & 2 Teasers
Stills gallery
Making of the film documentary
Making of CGI documentary

Scene selection - Expected, even on the most basic version of any film
Trailer - Maybe I wouldn't have watched it if I had seen this first!!!
Stills gallery - The point of this is???? Answers on a postcard please. Use freeze frame if you want to look at something - this is the age of DVD after all
Making of the film - Around 30 minutes long, follows a very basic film documentary formula - work your way round the crew not giving anyone enough time to really tell you anything.(Director,make-up, CGI, stunts, story etc etc )
Making of the CGI - Around 10 minutes in length, shows the techniques used to create the aliens & Egyptian Gods. 3 years of work went into the development, a real gamble for such a low budget film. Lots of green screen work & rotoscopy. Not of much interest if you have seen any Matrix 'making of' documentaries.

 

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