Clash of the Titans (Review)

When you go into a movie such as Clash of the Titans, you certainly can’t expect anything more than an entertaining ride with some cool special effects. Even a gigantic ball of cheese such as 2012 held my interest for nearly its entire running time. However, when I left Clash of the Titans I felt empty, like I had just eaten a steak dinner that left me hungry. It is only three or so hours after I walked out of the theatre as I write this, and I’m having a hard time remembering it in detail.

Perhaps the biggest insult to me was that from the beginning this film advertises the coming of the kraken. Within the first few scenes you have characters saying dialogue to the effect of “The kraken?” “The kraken!” “THE KRAKEN?!”. You half expect them to break into song, “Yellow Brick Road”-style. If you’ve seen a commercial for this movie you even see the kraken, and the already infamous Liam Neeson reciting of “Release the Kraken!” Finally, the aforementioned kraken is released. I begin to think, “Well, this is really cool.” Then before I can finish my thought, the movie is over. The signature beast of both the original 1981 movie and this remake is cut down to barely a full scene. Its face is seen for even less time. Just look at this picture:



There. Now you and I have had the same experience, but I saved you ten dollars. It is too late for me.

In fact, this entire film can be experienced simply by watching the trailer, and imagining it stretched to feature length. It barely deviates at all, and often it is edited together like a trailer. I also don’t understand the use of the shaky camera. That is often not a technique used in fantasy films, and if you have special effects to showcase I would not recommend it. You can’t tell what you are looking at, and it simply leads to a confusing experience. See: Transformers 2. Wait a minute, don’t! Phew, sorry about that.

Now let’s discuss what I liked about the film. As a whole, I really enjoyed 2.5 sequences. (The .5 being the kraken scene, it doesn’t count as a whole). The first was the attack of giant scorpions. It was one of the few scenes that was shot well, and I was really quite intrigued throughout. It certainly woke me up from my coma. Then I went in to another coma for about a half hour. I genuinely started to get tired, I kid you not. Then our group of heroes goes into the underworld to claim the head of Medusa, and it was quite a creepy and effective sequence, until we actually SAW Medusa, and frankly she just looked like a cartoon.

So what of the plot? Well, you see Zeus was angry at King Acrisius back in the day, so he impregnated his wife. Logical solution. Acrisius does not like this, so he kills his wife and sends her out to sea with their newborn child Perseus, who is soon found by a fisherman named Spyros. Perseus grows up, as they all do, and his family is murdered by Hades. Perseus swears vengeance on the gods, but he soon finds out he is Zeus’s lovechild, leaving him conflicted.

Meanwhile the gods are unhappy with the human race, so Hades begs to be set free upon the masses so that they may learn the error of their ways. Zeus obliges, silly him, and Hades looks to take everything over. This could not have been more transparent, meaning Zeus must be a moron. It is up to our friendly neighborhood demigod to stop Hades.

The cast here is rather impressive, but paycheck movies can do that. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes reunite for the first time since Schindler’s List here as Zeus and Hades, respectively. They both play it over-the-top, but that makes them memorable over the non-presence that is Sam Worthington, who was decent enough in Avatar but here seems bored. My favorite performance here is that of Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre in Casino Royale) as a soldier named Draco, and he is one of the few characters I cared about as far as whether they lived or died. Speaking of death, there is a scene where Perseus is told he is going to die by a few fortune-telling witches straight out of Pan’s Labyrinth. The movie forgets that scene five minutes after the fact.

I saw the film in 2-D, and let me tell you I did not spot one scene which could have been improved by 3-D. In fact, the movie was intended to be released in 2-D. Then Avatar came out. This movie was then delayed so it could be converted to 3-D and the studios could charge you an extra $4 to see it. This is starting to become ridiculous. If you design a movie to be seen in 3-D that’s one thing. Everything else is just a money-grab. But what else to you expect from Hollywood?

PREDICTABLE SPOILER AHEAD

There’s a conversation in the final scene between Perseus and Zeus which is so incredibly see-through. Zeus is basically telling Perseus that Hades may return to wreak havoc. It plays like this:

PERSEUS: So there IS going to be a sequel, right?

ZEUS: Perhaps, if the box office is good enough.

About there is where I put my hands to my face. Everything about this film is a product.

Rating: (out of 4)