Review of Immortal (2004) by Kylie S — 22 Dec 2010

An intriguing tale of ancient Egyptian gods returning to a dystopian future world in order to procreate, Immortal very nearly works but falls slightly short due to the unexplained and bewildering plot holes in the story and by some rather iffy CGI characters. Released roughly at the same time as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, this movie suffers because its characters are a mix of real actors and computer animated ones. I feel it would have worked better if they were either all live, as in Sky Captain, or animated such as in Final Fantasy. The mix just doesn't come off, especially as the animation is quite stylised making it look rather like games footage.

There's also some truly bizarre, clunky dialogue which I'm not sure but may be the result of poor translation (Charlotte Rampling has to deliver the line "What about his penis? Human looking too?"....and manages to do so without cracking a smile).

Where this movie does score well is in the cityscapes and technology which is interesting and well realised, even stunning in places.

The 'real' cast, headed by Linda Hardy and Thomas Kretschmann play their roles with conviction and Hardy in particular has lovely ethereal sense which suits her part as Jill the, well, I'm not quite sure whether she's an alien, a mutant and experiment or combination of all three.

I think this movie is a brave attempt to try to tell an fantastical tale in a novel and artistically interesting way. The fact that it doesn't quite hit the mark is a shame but it is worth a look.