This is why we're friends, Steven Moffat.

I may be the only one worried about a Doctor Who movie that cheerfully gives the series amiss in favor of its own, movie-only mythos. That's actually heartening for a change because the people who have some say about whether such a thing gets made aren't frightened of it actually getting made. To whit, Steven Moffat:

"Announcing my personal moonshot, starting from scratch. No money, no plan, no help from NASA. But I know where the moon is – I’ve seen it."

Ooh, I needed that on a Monday.

The pretty =/= the good

As jethrien and xannoside and glvalentine have all pointed out, Immortals is a mess. There are moments of brilliance and beauty floating through a sea of shit. The minotaur? Awesome concept, well executed design. The costumes? Superb, even if, as mithras03 pointed out, Theseus should not have been wearing pants. (I agreed with her, but for completely different reasons.) Of course, for every awesome costume, there was Poseidon's hat. Yeeaaaaaah...when your pantheon features extras from a gay German disco, maybe it's time to rethink.

I get why it's hard to re-write Greek myth. I do. The will/rule of the gods is capricious and confusing and movies require rules that are easier to understand. Even movies about tricksters have rules. (Rule #1: Satan is always going to fuck you. Do not make deals with Satan.) Greek myth has no binary moral code. Worse, the gods interfere with humans all the goddamned time, so it's hard to keep them from their deus ex machinations. Immortals tried to bench the supernatural A team. (That the B team--Hades, possibly Apollo, Hera--are never even in the movie is another issue.) It didn't work, but I understand why they tried.

But when you come right down to it, the movie made no sense, and what little sense it did make made me dangerously sympathetic to Mickey Rourke's character because because fuck the gods that's why. Little pricks who can't be arsed to do anything to spare human bloodshed until it looks like they might have to suffer a day in their life...