Clash of the Titans is a fantasy movie directed by Louis Leterrier, and is loosely based on the old Greek myth of the demigod Perseus. This movie is partly a remake of the film by the same title made in 1981, but Leterrier tried to make this his own version rather than remaking the original.
The movie is about a battle between men and gods, where the men declares war against the gods because they’re getting tired of the gods destroying their fishing seasons and their crops. Zeus decides to take Hades’ (God of the underworld) advice to unleash the ancient and almost unbeatable beast Kraken, the underwater titan with enormous tentacles. It will destroy the city of Argos unless they sacrifice their princess, Andromeda. Argos’ king brings a handful of his finest soldiers and the demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington) for a quest: they have to seek and ask the Stygian Witches for a way to slay this titan, because he don't want his city destroyed nor his daughter killed.
The movie has got the typical epic movie-attempt, with its large titans and monsters and its heroic story about the demigod (half-god) that tries to defy his faith in order to save Argus from total destruction. Unfortunately the movie isn’t as epic as it could be, and it always struggles to build up the excitement and the mystic era before and during the battles. It also fails to leave us with this epic feeling at the end of the movie, and what strikes me is that they’ve made the movie too short.
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| Perseus with the ultimate weapon: the Medusa's head. |
In other words, you could say that Clash of the Titans is an epic tale played in fast forward. They kind of failed to build up this epic atmosphere and after some fights I sat with one thought in mind: “Was that it?” Especially after the last battle scene which disappointed me big-time – if it qualifies as a fight. And I wonder how much better the movie had been if they’d added scenes to build up the excitement, and also added scenes to the fights to make them longer, harder and more epic (which the movie really is about). The movie did have some scenes that were quite cool though, and I did laugh every now and then.
On the other hand, Leterrier and his crew did things right as well. They have some respectable actors in their stable. Liam Neeson (Taken, The A-Team) plays the role as Zeus here, and Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List, Harry Potter-series) is the ugly Hades. Sam Worthington (Avatar, Terminator Salvation) plays Perseus, and the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, King Arthur) is Draco, the leader of Argus finest soldiers. The acting is good, and the plot is as well.
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| Argus' Finest with a demigod, a woman and an... um... unknown beast in the back. |
The movie lacks of the scenes that gives you the ‘whoa’-feeling and ends way behind other fantasy movies such as Lord of the Rings. They do good things with this movie (the environments are fantastic, the creatures looks awesome, the music is good and they’ve got good actors playing these roles), but the bad aspects of the movie drags it down to a mediocre movie. Not a bad movie, not at all, just a good one with some unfortunate trouble. I really wanted it to be much better, but it wasn’t, so I can’t brag it up to the skies. Those who enjoy the Greek mythology will recognize creatures such as Harpies, the Medusa etc and probably will get more out of it than those who just saw it for the action.
- LB
- LB
I just don't think that Worthington makes it as an A grade actor. He doesn't have that special something that fills the screen. If there is no action he isn't interesting. I suppose they thought that taking him straight from Avatar would guarantee an audience following.What do you think`?
ReplyDeleteI love Greek mythology and this really didn't raise it above Donald Duck mentality.
If you compare this to '300'
what do you think?
Yeah, I agree a bit with what you say about Sam Worthington. After Avatar he became a really hot actor, but the fact is that we didn't see much of him in Avatar afterall. He spent most of his time doing voice-over with his na'vi, but still I couldn't wait to see him in this movie.
ReplyDeleteI think this movie is giving some interesting aspects of the Greek mythology, but in a bad form. Like the battle with the Medusa: it's cool that the Medusa is involved in this movie, but it would have been much better if the fight was a bit longer and more intense. The movie 300 does not bring us that much mythology, just some epic fighting scenes (that beats the fighting scenes in Clash of the Titans any day) with some different creatures. The Gods are not involved at any point (as far as I can remember).
I have an interest for the Greek mythology as well, and I think that 300 is a much better made movie than Clash of the Titans. Many of the scenes in Clash of the Titans are ridiculously weird and a bit lame (thinking of the fighting scenes), while 300 is pure, awesome action - good feel violence.