Clash Of The Titans
Release Date: April 2nd, 2010
Warner Brothers/Legendary Pictures
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Mads Mikkelsen
Going into the 2010 version of Clash Of The Titans, I really only expected to have a good time. Nothing more and nothing less. It was doubtful from the way the trailers were constructed that the finished product would be anything but a stylish, rock 'n roll, action romp that just so happened to feature gods, pretty looking beasts and also inspired by a 1981 stop motion effects laden classic. Louis Leterrier's take on man's war with the gods sadly fails in almost every conceivable way.
Mortal kind has declared war on the gods for reasons that are never really fleshed out anymore then "someone has to take a stand". Something about not being able to catch fish and maybe a drought? The gods, who depend on the mortals for their prayers, are upset with their creation and decide to take it to the mere mortals through fire and fury. Meanwhile a simple fisherman named Perseus vows revenge on the gods for murdering his "family". By the way he's a demigod born from a woman who was more or less raped by Zeus. There are other subplots, many with some potential, that are never really explored and it's a damn shame.
The film is an absolute mess from start to finish with many plotlines that are abandoned or woefully incomplete. The main story has been transformed from a pseudo-rescue attempt by Perseus into a barely there revenge tale. In the original Perseus fell in love with Andromeda and vowed to kill the Kraken to ultimately save her. Not only is Andromeda barely in the show up but Perseus isn't at all interested; making the whole "best of both worlds" argument completely worthless. Perseus not only doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself, he's somehow supposed to be a hero you want to root for. This doesn't bode well for Sam Worthington who not only fails to impress but exudes about as much onscreen charisma as a cardboard cutout.
To be fair Worthington isn't terrible but definitely far from being good. His Perseus lacks any hint of an interesting quality aside from the stereotypical hellbent child on a revenge binge. It doesn't help that his dialogue mainly seems to consist of wanting to complete his mission as a man or the gods must pay. It's literally the same shit recycled over and over. Perseus is accompanied by a seemingly ragtag bunch of Argos soldiers who largely are made up of no names lined up as canon fodder for the various monsters on display. Mads Mikkelsen's Draco is the only one worth a damn, it just sucks that once he starts to get interesting his backstory is mentioned and then forgotten just as quickly. Mikkelsen does the best with what he's given but ultimately suffers as a largely useless character.
Your saying to yourself, "what about Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, they must be good!". It depends on how you look at their performances really. Liam Neeson is serviceable as Zeus but phones in a majority of his performance up until the end. We're meant to think Zeus is some sort of Old Testament style god calling for the destruction of the mortals who no longer believe in him. Unfortunately he comes across as a whiny, non threatening prick who may or may not have fucked over his somewhat loyal brother. Speaking of Hades, Ralph Fiennes put on the best performance by far compared to everyone else. Not only does he seem to have more fun with the role but there are times where he manages to show hints of pity beneath the surface adding a layer to the character that was likely cut from the movie. Hades also benefits from having by far the best character design in the entire film. The wings of smoke and ash along with the physical transformation into something truly unholy are quite amazing.
The use of CGI and practical effects is relatively hit or miss throughout the entire runtime. Much of the makeup is well done with Charon, Calibos and Stygian Witches being the best of the bunch. Their take on Charon was nice and different then what we are used to seeing, I certainly didn't expect something that gruesome looking. I would mention Pegasus but whether the the horse is CGI altered or practically done is pretty unclear but it's more then likely a combination of both which I guess is a testament to how well done the flying horse is. While much of the practical makeup and elements occur in non-action oriented sections of the movie, CGI monsters and battles fill out the larger sword and sorcery from a good to bad range. As the centerpiece of the movie, the Kraken looked unbelievable with quite a bit of detail and a truly HUGE presence. I was really looking forward to the Medusa scene as I loved it in the original and I feel like with updated special effects it would be the movie's "horror element". The result was something too fake to be menacing and unbalanced to be anything but boring. The scorpions fall somewhere in the middle, while looking great from a distance, the closeup shots really suffered as the living actors looked like they were riding a green screened bull riding machine.
Clash is at it's core a compilation of loosely connected action scenes. Most scenes don't dwell for too long and consist little more then getting to the next big video game cutscene. Point A to Point B to Point C, etc. Although the scenes may not make much logical sense in terms of the story they are competently directed and paced quickly so that the movie at least gets to the big baddies as quick as possible, good for people with ADD but bad for the story. The Medusa fight is underwhelming and not nearly as cool as it could/should have been. The scorpions added some much needed humor to the battle scenes resulting in one of the only passable set pieces in the whole movie. The ending battle is very anticlimactic and feels rushed compared to the amount time spent getting to the end of the journey, almost as if they needed it under 1 hour and 45 minutes and lucky for them they ran out of ideas. The entire movie feels real sliced up and segmented with little transitioning between scenes. This makes a decent collection of pretty sequences but as a overall narrative it fails miserably.
Despite all of the crap I am giving this movie there are some great ideas in it that I think if explored and done correctly could have made it an enjoyable action adventure. The entire war between the Olympians subplot with Zeus and Hades is pretty cool and far more interesting then anything found in the final cut. The slight indication that Zeus could possibly be the bad guy with Hades as a wronged brother could have been great especially with the actors involved. Some of the visuals such as the gods walking on a mini map of the world could have been played as a nice Mount Olympus effect but instead looks like a cheap video game cutscene.
Considering the talent involved we should have ended up with at least a decently entertaining action flick. It ends up being rather boring and completely lacking any sort of character at all. The movie never really reached the level of enjoyment that I expected. Leterrier's newest is by far his worst, however I do think he still has a lot of potential considering the entertaining qualities and aspects of his previous films like The Incredible Hulk and Unleashed. I will continue to give the guy a change in the hopes that he may truly create something great.
There are far more entertaining movies out currently that you should spend your money on and I would strongly suggest watching the original. Although not the greatest movie of all time it was at least fun enough to offset the goofy as hell production. I can't justify spending any time or money on this movie and I almost wish I hadn't seen it now. Instead I could think about what it would be like to remake Clash Of The Titans, damn that would be have been cool if it had happened.
NOTE: I did not see the 3D version of the movie as I refuse to watch anything converted to 3D although I am told it makes the movie damn near unwatchable so take that for what its worth.
Good: Some of the special effects, the Bubo cameo was fun, Ralph Fiennes
Bad: Story, some of the special effects, poor story structure, boring, needs more Kraken
Score: 3
No comments:
Post a Comment