Movie Mondays!




A noble effort that falls short, Immortal could at best be considered a passable movie. Enki Bilal brings his graphic novel work to life and unfortunately it doesn’t translate as well as it might have. While there is no denying Bilal’s creativity, he falls victim to the trap many autuers succumb to in translating his work from one medium to another. Bilal is so concerned with staying true to his source material, he unfortunately fails to edit himself by cutting out unnecessary scenes or plot threads. As a result, the story plods along at ponderous pace repelling only the most dedicated viewer. This film also marries animated and live action characters (a la Roger Rabbit or the Star Wars movies). While in some instances it makes perfect sense, in others it only serves to distract the viewer. It winds up being overkill when an actor in prosthetics would have much better served the purpose. Other reviewers have made comparisons to The Fifth Element and if you’ve seen Besson’s movie you’ll note similarities in tone and style. However, Besson succeeds where Bilal fails. If you’ve read any of Bilal’s work in Heavy Metal or Metal Hurlant, you’ll probably want to seek this out just to see what Bilal did but, if you’re have only a cursory knowledge of Bilal’s work you will more than likely be better served watching Fifth Element which is a better paced and tighter film.

I’m repurposing content by taking my NetFlix reviews and posting them here on the blog. If I could figure out a way to do it, I’d post some kind of link for people to connect and make me their friend on the service. Unfortunately, it isn’t altogether clear how one would do that - so if you know a way, pass it along. In the meantime, I’ve got steady content for at least a year.