Immortality seems like kind of a lame
superpower. All it means is that you
can’t die. You can still feel pain. And what happens if it doesn’t include the
replacement of lost limbs? You could
have to spend the rest of your life as just a head or something? This doesn’t even mention the loss of all
your loved ones and having to keep up with society for an eternity. Plus, what if you gain immortality when
you’re 80? There are a lot of
quality-of-life issues you’d have to contend with.
Andromache has been dealing with that
for approximately 6,000 years. She leads
a small band of other immortals who fight for good causes. It’s not necessarily anything major, but they
tend to help people who go on to do something important. The latest addition to this group is Nile
Freeman, a soldier serving in Afghanistan.
So, Andy has to not only find Nile and help her out, but she has to deal
with a pharmaceutical CEO names Steven Merrick.
Merrick wants to find the immortals and
study them. If he could figure out where
the immortality comes from, he could sell it and make a fortune, as if he
weren’t rich enough. It would sound
pretty easy, as the immortals don’t have to fear death. However, nothing lasts forever. And it’s not really that simple.
It’s pretty obvious that Netflix is
trying to set up a franchise here. The
movie doesn’t go into too much detail about where the immortals came from. It’s not stated that the powers are genetic
or divine. It’s also implied that maybe
six or so have it at any given time. It
comes across a lot like Highlander.
Granted, a lot of the major details are different. These immortals only fight for good and
aren’t compelled to battle each other.
(It’s not even clear what effect beheading would even have.)
The ending also leaves open the
possibility of another movie or even a TV series. It might be interesting to see what that
looks like, but I’m hoping that any future projects would look better than
this. The writing is a little flat and
it’s not particularly fast-paced. This
wouldn’t be so bad if it were setting something up. Andy would be on her way out and Nile would
be serving as the audience’s surrogate.
A TV show could make sense. Each episode could deal with some moral issue
while at the same time building the mythology.
I would hope that Merrick wouldn’t come back, though. He was a one-dimensional villain. He seemed like a stock Scooby-Doo villain in
some regards. There was no dying
grandmother. He didn’t seem concerned by
bettering humanity. He was purely
motivated by profit. But, hey…Who wants
to live forever, anyway?
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