Twitch

I just saw a poster for "immortel" at the paramount - I think it'll tank in the limited theatres once word gets out how bad it turned out. Unfortunate because the trailer made it look that it was worth the view.

I got the DVD a week ago from Amazon of France. Love the packaging. The original dialog is in English but you can not remove the French subtitles.

The movie is very artistic and visual very different. However the movie plot looked like a pilot for a series.

Watched this about a month back.
Didnt really find it to amusing, cant really put my finger on why though. I guess part of it might be because of the bad CG used throughout the movie (all the cg aint bad though).

i think the trailer for this movie should compete with Casshern in "the best misleading trailer" category

Casshern's that bad?

I sure didn't think so. Some are upset that Casshern's not a straight up action film, but I got exactly what I expected from it and I thought it was incredible ...

On Immortel: I watched the first 10 minutes and was not compelled enough to continue. The DVD sits at home waiting for a rainy day.

On Casshern: Despite some weak moments in the middle and a lack of any hint of explanation as to why the 'baddies' found a gigantic robot-factory/fortress in the middle of nowhere, the steller ending pulls all the thematic threads (if not the narrative ones) together. Casshern ended up being OK in my book...I watched it back-to-back with Oshii's "AVALON" (Far superior than Casshern by-the-way, but entirely different) I had some really weird dreams afterwards...

KuRt.

I completely disagree. Immortel's story makes some of the weak CG characters a non-issue. The story is very similar (in terms of the message) to Casshern's, and in that sense, I highly recommend both films.

Man, I love Avalon ... the Miramax release is ugly, but the transfer's good and it includes some decent special features. It does, however, feature 'dubtitles' rather than a true translation, which irritated me enough that I went back to the HK release to get a true translation ...

Yea, the 'dubtitles' in Avalon freaked us out initially - exposition without any related dialogue - It wasn't until after I read a bit on the web that I found out Miramax used a dub track for their subtitles. Still I found it for $4 in a bin, so I can't complain. I look forward to watching it again though...It's the images and ideas, not the dialogue that make the Oshii's film.

KuRt.

Immortel's soundtrack is fantastic also. It made me download some of the licensed tracks used in the film, which are all excellent. The film also made me track down the Nikopol Trilogy collection of graphic novels on which it is based. I managed to find the hardcover edition on Amazon and should have it within the next week. Enki Bilal's artwork is incredible, and the French DVD has a nice extra that just shows him doing his thing, and it's amazing how well he does it. Immortel isn't his first film, either. I'd love to track down the others, but I'm not sure if they have DVD releases anywhere, even without subtitles. They're older, obscure, science fiction films, though one stars Julie Delpy.

As far as the cast being stilted, I didn't feel the main cast was the least bit bad at all. Thomas Kretschmann has acted in tons of American films, most recently Resident Evil Apocalypse and the Frankenstein TV movie. Linda Hardy speaks fluent English, though her voice was still dubbed so as to not give her character an accent (Bilal wanted her to sound like she could be from anywhere), and Charlotte Rampling is an accomplished British actress. The voice of Horus was good, and most of the main CG characters. It was the minor CG characters that weren't as good, though that was a non-issue with me. I was too engrossed with the visuals and story.

I totally agree on the soundtrack - it's fantastic.

As far as the actors, I'm not saying that they're bad just that there are moments when the delivery is odd. If you speak French - the wonders of the Canadian school system - it's pretty obvious that Bilal is having them deliver their lines using the cadence and emphasis that the lines would have if they were still in French ... problem is that the syntax is different, the sequence of nouns and verbs is different, so you get pauses in strange places. It's a really common thing when you have directors working with dialogue outside of their native tongue. The same thing happens with Shimizu's english remake of The Grudge and the same thing happens in Jeunet's Alien Resurrection.

How much did the graphic novels set you back? I've been meaning to look those up ...

I tried to watch Immortel a few weeks ago, but really couldn't get into it because the "video game" characters were just too distracting. I'll try & watch it again someday, because my friend who loaned it to me said it had a cool story. It's really like a comic book w/a great story & horrible artwork.

Soft cover version of the Nikopol trilogy releases December 1st ... DC's doing it, so it should be easy to find ...

The hardcover set me back $30. And it better come soon.

Where did you guys get to see this movie? I've been wanting to see it since last march. I'm in Vancouver and can't find it anywhere. I was in Montreal last week but didn't have time to make it to the theatre. I would prefer see it in theatre or original dvd (without buying it for now)
Thanks

Amazon.fr is where I got mine.

well immortel is playing in vancouver now on granville street i saw it yesterday and quite enjoyed it other than the fact that it was full of plot holes. btw can anyone steer me in the right direction of where i could buy or download the soundtrack from? or atleast give me the names of osome of the artists?

I'm pretty sure I heard me some Sigur Ros in there ... quite a lot of it, really ...