Okay, so we have done The Cell, and we have done The Fall, and if you have been following along, you know I have been building a case for Tarsem Singh as one of the most insane visual filmmakers of the last thirty years. I will continue with the last of his films for this book. Well, not the last of his films he made, but the last I will review. This one came out on November 11, 2011, a few days before my birthday. And I recall seeing this in the theater at the San Francisco Metreon, when that was the best place to catch a movie in San Francisco. This, of course, I was super excited to see because it was the third film this director was making. And yes, again waiting a bit over five years for it, so I was damn excited. I remember walking out of this absolutely loving it, but also realizing I was seeing a new actor who would climb the ranks over the next few years. But I will talk about that below. Let’s crank through this last Tarsem film.
The year is 1228 BC. A peasant stonemason named Theseus, played by Henry Cavill, lives in a village in Greece with his mother. I should say, I am triple-checking every name because as I was watching and taking notes, I was not doing so great. Back to it. So, he is essentially an outcast, capped on by everyone around him despite being an extraordinary warrior secretly being trained by an old man. That old man, played by John Hurt, is not who he appears to be. Meanwhile, King Hyperion, played by Mickey Rourke (2011 post-Iron Man 2 huge), is laying waste to everything in his path across Greece. He is looking for the Epirus Bow, a legendary weapon that can open the prison holding the Titans beneath Mount Tartarus and unleash them on the gods. The gods, led by Zeus, are forbidden by their law from interfering in mortal affairs unless the Titans are released. Which means it falls to Theseus to stop all of this. That is your movie. And I am not going to talk more about the plot because it like everything else I write about is a must-watch. But what this Tarsem film does is create the most visually spectacular sword and sandal epic, shot visually beautifully, with gold and blood, just wow. Unreal.
Now, the cast. Henry Cavill is Theseus, and this role is important in his career in a way that I do not think gets acknowledged enough. He was not yet Superman; that was still two years away. He was not yet The Witcher, which is eight years away. He was an unknown British actor who trained eight hours a day, five days a week, to prepare for this film. I read he’s all natural, which he does by doing no weight training, I believe. Insane. Multiple people have written that this role was a direct audition for Superman, and Zack Snyder was paying attention. He should have been, because, you see, he can carry a film, and being Superman has another level to it. Anyway, he is amazing in this, but let’s not forget how awesome he is in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Or the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. And the upcoming Highlander, which I am super jazzed to see. Okay, back to this film. Mickey Rourke is King Hyperion, and in an article I read, Tarsem said that you do not direct Mickey Rourke, you just point the camera at him and roll. He talks so quietly and is menacing and genuinely unsettling in a great way. Easily one of his best performances. This is very high on my list of films I love him in, but will always fall behind Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Year of the Dragon, and Sin City. But this is easily number four. John Hurt as the Old Man is John Hurt doing John Hurt things, which means every scene he is in is perfect. The man was nominated for Oscars for both Midnight Express and The Elephant Man, and he brings that professionalism and superior acting to this flick. Stephen Dorff is Stavros, the wisecracking thief who becomes Theseus’s reluctant companion, and he is funny and likable and adds the only real comedey/joking into the film. Luke Evans is Zeus, and he is extraordinary; he looks like a god in this. This was early Luke Evans, before he was Gaston in Beauty and the Beast and all the rest, and he owns every scene as anyone playing Zeus should. Freida Pinto is Phaedra the oracle, and she is beautiful. And that is not giving her the flowers she deserves. Kellan Lutz is Poseidon. Isabel Lucas is Athena. Daniel Sharman is Ares. And Joseph Morgan plays a traitorous soldier, and if you do not know Joseph Morgan by face and name, he is Klaus Mikaelson from The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, and even in a supporting role here, he is solid. Just a loaded cast across the board. I even feel like I am forgetting people.
Now the crew. The director is Tarsem, and this is the first time he worked with a real studio budget and a mainstream genre film. Here is what I am grabbing from the article of him describing his approach to this film, because I am not going to describe it correctly; better to use his phrasing. It is as if Caravaggio meets Fight Club. Renaissance painting style applied to brutal ancient warfare. And that is pretty much it on the nose. The cinematographer is Brendan Galvin, and he was tasked with the challenge of making every frame feel like it could be paused and hung on a wall as a painting. They kind of pull it off. The gods, in particular, when they finally move, are shot at a thousand frames per second to make them blur and streak across the screen faster than anything human. The sequence where Poseidon leaps from Olympus is one of the most visually impressive things in any film from the decade. The screenplay is by brothers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, and it is what it is. The plot is fine. The dialogue is fine. No Oscars for the script. But the job here was to give Tarsem a series of scenes that translate to paintings, and they nail that. The costumes are designed by Eiko Ishioka in what turned out to be one of her final films before her death in 2012. The Olympian gods wear towering golden headdresses that look like nothing I have ever seen. I have a foam one from the premiere, and it is one of my prize possessions. Hyperion’s army wears layered black armor. Very sick-looking. The oracles wear crimson red robes that remind me of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. As with all the previous ones, stunning. The score is by Trevor Morris, and it is big and opera- like and works.
And now my favorite part, the quotes
“It’s not living as such that’s important, Theseus. It’s living rightly.” – Zeus
“Stand your ground! Fight for honor! Fight for the man beside you! Fight for those who bore you! Fight for your children! Fight for your future! Fight for your name to survive! Fight! For immortality!” – Theseus
“Traitor, although you will not hear them, your forefathers weep from their graves. For the future of their bloodline ends with you here tonight.” – Hyperion
What can I say in wrapping this one up? This is not a complex plot; you have seen this type of film plenty of times before, but this is a film about what happens when a visionary director gets a real budget and a fantastical sandbox and decides to make the most beautiful violent thing he can imagine. It made 227 million dollars worldwide on an 80 million dollar budget. His best film ever, it opened at number one and held. I also believe that when it came out on DVD, it was also the number one movie of that week, a year later. Pretty awesome for a director who made three movies over thirteen years. It is on Amazon Prime for under three bucks, and I promise you this is the best deal I have offered to date. But like everything else, you hate it, find me, and I will send you sixty nickels.
Fun Facts:
- As I said earlier, Henry Cavill trained for eight hours a day, five days a week, to prepare for this role and refused any CGI or makeup to enhance his physique. Zack Snyder was casting Superman at the same time this was in production. You do not need to draw a direct line, but there is definitely a direct line.
- Mickey Rourke chose to do this film instead of the 2011 Conan the Barbarian reboot. Take a second with that. He looked at both options and picked this one. I believe it was to play Conan’s father, which went to Ron Perlman. Given how much fun he appears to be having as Hyperion, I think he made the right call.
- The film was shot almost entirely in Montreal on green screen stages, much like 300. A complete departure from The Fall. Completely fascinating to go visually in his films from The Cell to The Fall to this flick. Crazy.
