Theseus: Immortals

Tarsem Singh Dwandwar’s films are always visually stunning, but often dramatically underwhelming for me. His 2011 Greek Mythology epic Immortals has some of the best depictions of the sheer power and otherworldliness of the Olympian Gods and the Titans, but the story itself drags too much at the beginning and suffers from some weak villains whose stories aren’t particularly compelling to me.

I’ve trimmed the first act of the film so that action gets going much earlier by cutting the entirety of the castrated traitor subplot and a few other bits here and there. Mickey Rourke’s King Hyperion works better in much, much smaller doses, so he’s used more sparingly.

The whole movie now clocks in at a lean 1 hour 30 minutes. I’ve included two versions of the film, one with hardcoded English subtitles for my ESL students and another without subtitles. I’ve also included my ‘Heroes of Olympus’ readers that retell the stories of Greek Mythology in a new way to better connect with modern audiences. Please PM me if you’d like a link (or just check the same link if I’ve given you one before).

I’ve also added a stripped-to-the-bone edit of Renny Harlin’s Legend of Hercules that’s a mere half hour. I put it on while I was trying to sleep on a long flight last year and, while most of it is subpar 300/Gladiator/Troy knockoffs, there are a handful of fun scenes in there. So, I’ve tossed out everything but the barest essentials of a plot and left you with some pretty fun action sequences that made me sit up in my seat and pay attention because they were…well…kewl.

Similarly quick edits of Dwayne Johnson’s bigger budget, but similarly dull, Hercules will be included later on, as will edits of Clash of the Titans and, possibly, Troy.