Treading the same well-oiled, loincloth-laden path as 300, Immortals clearly intends to reel in the same audience and delight in the same way as its box-office behemoth predecessor.
And, if that truly is the case then it is epic fail time for director Tarsem Singh as this bloody yet bloated romp fails to entertain on most, if not all, levels.
Throwing us back in time to a world of gods and generals, Henry Cavill stars as Theseus, thrust into the spotlight when the villainous King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) seeks to gain the Bow of Epirus and rule over mankind.
Theseus, a mere peasant, having seen his mother slain before his eyes by, decides to take up arms,  join the fight against the evil threatening to envelop the world.
Further complicating matters are the gods (led by Luke Evans’ Zeus), who are squabbling among themselves as to whether or not to intervene and save the situation.
While this all sounds pretty interesting, things are handcuffed right from the off by a remarkably poor script.
Ham-fisted, clichéd dialogue (sample: I’m a thief, and if I wasn’t handcuffed I’d steal your heart) elicits more guffaws than anything else.
There is little or no characterisation and the plot simply rumbles forward without any real drive or purpose.
Things do liven up after the warrior Titans are eventually unleashed, forcing the gods to step in for some smackdown of epic proportions, but by then you have just stopped caring.
Superman-to-be Cavill, in a leading role that offers some insight into his star credentials, has very little to work with and struggles to hold the thing together, although he certainly looks the part.
The other stars fare little better, from Freida Pinto’s soothsayer to Rourke’s mumbling villain to an appallingly-written ‘lovable’ rogue, brought to cringeworthy life by Stephen Dorff.
The positives? Well, the whole thing looks great and there are some superbly-staged fight sequences, complete with decapitations and plenty of hacked limbs.
But that is nowhere near enough to save Immortals – a film that, while undoubtedly being a very stylish mess, is a mess nonetheless.

About The Author

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Simon is a journalism tutor in London, who also just happens to be a movie fanatic, with a craving for the darker side of cinema. He has written three books - on the horror films of director Bob Clark (2014), the history of the character Norman Bates (2015) and the work of British exploitation director Pete Walker (2017). He is currently working with director Richard Loncraine to explore all avenues in a bid to orchestrate the re-release of 1978 Mia Farrow chiller Full Circle