Wow. What can I say. Being a wet and dull evening lined up for me, I decided to trade some old DVDs in for a new movie to watch - while I was at Real Groovy, I saw Immortal on the shelf and remembered looking at the poster online and being very intrigued by it.
The basic story goes like this. The year is 2095. A corporation named Eugenics has taken over the world through manipulation of the world's governments. New York, in particular, seems to be suffering a number of problems. Not only is there an issue with aliens moving to Earth and mutants abound, the city is now dealing with an incident called the Intrusion - basically a space-time anomaly that has ripped open Central Park.
But that's not all folks. A pyramid has appeared over the city, raising the already tense levels of conflict in the city.
See, the egyptians were right - their gods are the true gods of the universe, it appears. And now Horus (for some reason not really explained) has seven days before he loses his immortality. Yeah, yeah, nobody stopped to ask "if you stop being immortal, doesn't that mean you never were immortal?" Look, just go with it.
So Horus has some master plan to ensure he doesn't actually kick the deitic bucket when his time runs out. It involves a girl, a man in cryostasis and a sleazy hotel room. No. I'm not making this up. Really.
Okay, so while Horus gets his shit together - involving a sideline career as a serial killer because all these genetically altered humans are unsuitable to contain his divine essence - a mysterious pale woman with blue hair, amnesia and the ability to blast energy bolts from her hands is scooped up by Eugenics.
See, it ends up that Eugenics has set up the world so that the genetically enhanced (who all look like CG rejects from Hellraiser for the most part) live at the top of the food chain and normal humans live in slums. Now to genetically enhance people, Eugenics needs fresh... parts. Guess where they get them from. Anyhoop, this girl is saved by a lesbian doctor who doesn't actually have sex or even likes to watch. As far as I can tell she gets off by reading medical readouts of the women she treats or something. Go figure. It simply isn't explained.
MEANWHILE, a detective is investigating a series of grusome murders where genetically enhanced people have spontaneously exploded. Oh, and the Senator of New York is dealing with something - I think it is covering up his connection with Eugenics, making contact with the Pyramid spaceship and feeding flying tentacled hammer-head shark aliens. Um. Yeah.
MEANWHILE, a bunch of cryochambers on an orbital station fall on New York and land on one of the bridges. Horus saves this guy, Nikopol, who was in one of the tubes. Unfortunately Nikopol loses his leg in the process - but Horus makes him a new one out of a steel pylon.
*sigh*
Then we find out that Horus great plan (which he states is beyond human comprehension and understanding) is to shag the blue chick from another continuum/reality so that he can have a kid who will be his reincarnation. Yeah. Because if there is one thing that we humans just don't get, it's sex.
Somehow all this is going to be resolved in a 105 minute movie.
Immortal utilises a fully digital set - like Sky Captain and Casshern. Basically the world is fully CG, with the actors standing infront of a green screen. Unfortunately for some inexplicable reason there are only three actors in the movie. Everyone else is CG. And we're not talking good CG, here. We're talking early 1990s Playstation cutscenes CG people. Which look odd against the gorgeous city and vehicles. Horus and the other egyptian gods are also CG, and look kinda okay for the most part.
BUT WHAT THE HELL WAS WITH ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE? I watched the credits. They hired individual actors to do the voices of all the other characters. Voice actors aren't that much cheaper to hire, and they would have needed actors to do the motion capture. So why have CG people at all? Why not get real actors? GAH!
The movie is based on a series of Belgian comics called the Nikopol trilogy - which, from a little google research - look like they were actually quite cool. So what the hell happened? Immortal is, to put it bluntly, stupid. It has a crap plot, a REALLY dumb execution and the only thing worth commenting on is the gorgeous scenery. The idea of gods coming to a futuristic society and showing that there is more to the universe than science is a cool idea. Shame it got lost in the bizarre mix of ideas and plots and FRICKING LOW-GRADE CG PEOPLE!
I may keep this DVD around for a while longer to see if there can be any humour factor regained from it.
On to Casshern. Ahhh. Well to be honest I haven't actually watched all of it yet. Why? Because this DVD is possibly... no... it is the worst DVD transfer ever. It looks worse than a bootleg copy filmed in the middle of the theatre. The quality of the visuals is simply shocking. I stopped it after one minute of over saturated poorly visible and hideously choppy recording.The fact that the subtitles aren't an option, they are filmed onto the actual video - because it was clearly transfered from analogue onto a digital copy. This means that the DVD has a shocking degredation of quality. So bad that it is difficult to make out details and the beauty of the movie is lost to poor quality.
So I remain uncertain as to how cool Casshern is. Maybe I will be able to force myself to watch this shit copy, but I am boycotting anything by Rialto Home Entertainment again until they can produce a decent quality DVD. Very disappointed.
Love and Huggles
Conan
Currently Reading: The Reality Dysfunction
Currently Playing: Exalted: The Seventh Legion
Mood: Protecting you all from crap DVDs!
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