Immortals

Directed by Tarsem Singh. Starring Henry Cavill, Stephen Dorff, Luke Evans, John Hurt, Isabel Lucas, Kellan Lutz, Freida Pinto, Mickey Rourke 15A cert, general release, 110 min

Immortalsis a trippy, enjoyably vulgar disinterment of ancient classics, writes DONALD CLARKE

BY A STRANGE accident of popular culture, today's youth could end up receiving the most rigorous education in the classics since teachers wore mortar boards and swore by Latin gerunds. Thanks go to Zack Snyder's 300and such imitators as Clash of the Titansand this latest exercise in antique bloodletting.

For his entry to the genre, Tarsem Singh, director of the cult favourite The Fall,has elected to tell the story of Theseus, founder of Athens, and his endless war with various monstrously angry character actors. Yes, this weirdly prescient film finds Greece facing up to a monstrous apocalypse. Write your own jokes.

As it happens, Immortalsis among the weirdest blockbusters ever propelled towards a mainstream audience. Singh has retained the surreal hyper-reality that he perfected for The Fall. Endless, rigorously composed tableaux take in fantastic costumes, expressionistic virtual sets and fanatically distorted sunsets.

So the film is often beautiful. But this is the kind of highly controlled, unashamedly vulgar beauty that decorates the foyer of luxury hotels in former Soviet Republics. Holy virgins wear lampshades on their heads. The Minotaur sports a class of wicker-work metallic helm. Who let Mickey Rourke in the building? It’s rather like encountering a scarred Milwaukee biker at an upmarket spa.

Anyway, the great survivor turns up as the legendarily brutal King Hyperion. As Immortalsbegins, the warrior monarch and his legions are rampaging their way through Greece's blameless hinterlands.

Hyperion’s ultimate objective is to awake the sleeping Titans and attain total control of the realm. But a humble stonemason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) has other ideas. Briefed by a predictably beautiful Phaedra (Freida Pinto), the Sibylline Oracle, our archetypal hero gathers together a band of similarly buff bruisers and begins a resistance campaign.

Fans of 300will have some idea what to expect. The film dwells in similarly fantastic territory, but, rather than comic books, Singh's main influence appears to be pop videos from the 1980s and 1990s. If an antagonist doesn't look like an unwanted member of Duran Duran, he will, like as not, come across as an extra from a Nine Inch Nails promo.

Facetiousness aside, one should acknowledge the completeness of Singh’s vision. Story is consistently elbowed aside by his stubborn aesthetic obsessions. We award the chap three stars for arrogance and (often literal) bloody-mindedness.