Immortal (ad vitam)

January 18, 2007

Rated: R Runtime: 102 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

There are two ways to review Immortal (ad vitam). One way would be to look deeply at the story and examine the allegories between it and our present day society. The other way would be to look at it as some basic sci-fi with some interesting, if inconsistent, visual effects. Guess which way I’m going?

Immortal (ad vitam) The year is 2095 and there’s a pyramid hovering above New York City. Inside are the gods Anubis, Bastet and Horus (along with some others who never get out of their crypts) but the star of this show is Horus, who has 7 days to find a mate and extend his immortality (don’t think about that, it’ll annoy you.) Meanwhile on the surface a girl with blue hair and white skin named Jill has just been picked up by Eugenics, the company that’s basically running New York City now. Turn out she’s not quite human but she’s becoming more human every day.

Horus has the form of a man with a bird head and can turn into a large bird in order to fly. Fortunately he can also take over a host body in order to move amongst the people.. and to do the nasty with Jill. He can also shootfreakin lasers out of his eyes. Horus eventually finds the host he wants (Nikopol ), takes him over in a symbiotic relationship and goes on the prowl for Jill. I’m leaving a lot out of the story here, but it’s not going to sway you one way on the other on if you want to see this movie. You’ve got a Egyptian god come back to Earth looking for a booty call, and he can shootfreakin lasers out of his eyes. That sentence alone should tell you if this is a movie you want to see or not.

The visual effects are spotty. The scenes in the city with flying cars are very well done for a low budget movie, while the animated scenes in the pyramid are horrible even ifBastet has nice boobs. Other purely digital characters look OK, but aren’t as smooth as a good video game can achieve these days. That’s less a knock on the movie and more a statement on how good games have gotten. While the consistency in the effects leaves a lot to be desired, the overall effect is excellent. Sure, you’ll never suspend disbelief when watching this movie but that doesn’t matter due to the interesting story and solid acting.

Immortal (ad vitam) is a weird movie, but I recommend any science fiction fans to pick this one up. Oh, did I mention Jill has blue nipples? There, another sentence that should tell you if you want to see this movie or not.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Charlotte Rampling, DVD, Linda Hardy, R, SciFi, Thomas Kretschmann, Thomas M Pollard