Aduro wrote:Bah, the movie's just a rip off of God of War anyways...

Aduro wrote:Bah, the movie's just a rip off of God of War anyways...

sexiest_hero wrote:Man if somebody doesn't plant some dragon teeth that turn in to armed skeletons, I'm going to take some skulls

Flashman wrote:I was mildly interested in this film as a bit of throwaway entertainment, but the clip I saw on the news this evening looked awful. It showed Medusa chasing Perseus around her temple, but the effects were arguably worse than the original. Remember the plastic looking Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns? Very similar!

mattyboy22 wrote:

Aduro wrote:Bah, the movie's just a rip off of God of War anyways...

Please tell me you aren't serious.

Flashman wrote:I was mildly interested in this film as a bit of throwaway entertainment, but the clip I saw on the news this evening looked awful. It showed Medusa chasing Perseus around her temple, but the effects were arguably worse than the original. Remember the plastic looking Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns? Very similar!

Empire wrote:The ancient Greeks not only told great tales that explored the human psyche through epic adventures, they did something unprecedented in human civilization up to that point. They created their gods in man’s image. Thus the gods on Mount Olympus are a fallible and emotional lot, given to passionate outbursts, horrid tantrums, unpredictable fits of compassion and lusty urges that will not be denied.

Perseus is the result of one of Zeus’s impulsive assaults on an innocent mortal woman, which gets her executed by her enraged husband King Acrisius (Jason Flemyng, who reappears slathered in prosthetics as a relentless mutant killer henchman of Hades) and almost does for baby Perseus except Pete Postlethwaite and Elizabeth McGovern fish him out of the Aegean and adopt him. A swift passage of years and he’s bulked up into Sam Worthington, sporting a buzz cut and looking more like a U.S. Marine than a Greek seaman.

Circumstances force him to Argos, where the decadent populace have turned their backs on the gods, provoking the wrath of the Olympians and inspiring resentful king of the Underworld Hades to plot the overthrow of his brother Zeus while they are distracted by wiping out mortals.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, Perseus then girds his loins and sets off with a platoon of Argosians who range from salty veterans (Mads Mikkelson, Liam Cunningham) to Hans Matheson and a delicate youth (Nicholas Hoult). But they are almost indistinguishable since they all have cornrow extensions and a lot of facial hair. Costume designer Lindy Hemming was instructed not to show too much leg between their leather mini-skirts and their sandal boots, darn it, but at least they’ve been kitted out with those ab-sculpted breastplates that make them all look ripped. They have to find three obnoxious hags called the Stygian Witches so Perseus can get the answer to a Big Question, cross into the Underworld to kill the gorgon Medusa (Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova with snake dreadlocks and looks that kill), tote her head back to Argos and surprise Hades’ ravenous monster of the deep, the Kraken, with it. That’s the idea anyway, but numbers dwindle alarmingly and in the wrong order, with the prettiest warriors mercilessly dispatched, and most of them so abruptly you are never sure who that was that just toppled into a fiery abyss or shattered into pieces. En route they battle icky giant scorpion things and hook up with nomadic guys who look like tree trunks with glowing blue eyes and ride the desert monsters. That bit is like Dune, and not in a good way.

Two things stand-out. The first is Fiennes’s hugely fun turn as a hunchbacked, raspy-voiced, bitter, twisted Hades who turns up in a fireball and a smoking cloak to wreak a spot of havoc, instill terror, make dire pronouncements and such. The on-screen reunion of Neeson and Fiennes echoes their Schindler’s List dynamic, Zeus being all handsome and kind of noble, and Hades all full-tilt nutso. Also good is fragrant Gemma Arterton’s demi-goddess Io being attached to the travelling band of warriors since she serves as a quite useful Voice of Exposition, explaining all sorts of otherwise baffling stuff.

It will have become apparent to devotees of the 1981 Clash of the Titans, which was not very good either but is fondly remembered, that the plot in this is quite different. Even those who prefer the manlier Worthington to Harry Hamlin (so dreamy in his shortie toga) will regret the sidelining here of the Olympians, who ought to manipulate mankind like pieces on a game board but are relegated to fleeting extras. What was the point of casting Danny Huston as Poseidon, for instance, then disposing of him after one line? Despite a rather good, gnarly skeletal River Styx ferryman, the effects don’t come close to the charm of Ray Harryhausen’s creations. Bubo, Harryhausen’s mechanical owl, makes a brief cameo by way of homage, but the most magical element in a generally lunkheaded outing is winged Pegasus, the flying horse and his herd achieved beautifully.

As for the 3D, it’s a non-event, the film having been shot normally and twiddled in post to ride the Avatar wave. It’s effective in a few bits (you can almost smell the Kraken's breath), but if you take the glasses off it doesn’t make a lot of difference most of the time.

3 Stars

Total Film wrote:Nostalgia shouldn’t blind us to the weaknesses in the original Clash Of The Titans. The effects were old-hat even by ’80s standards, Harry Hamlin’s hairdo was a disaster and the all-star cast of Olympian deities looked mortified to be pratting about in togas on a set apparently modelled after Caesar’s Palace.

Not surprisingly, the CG wizardry in Louis Leterrier’s reprise is light years ahead of Ray Harryhausen’s primitive model work. That apart, alas, this rebooted Clash is inferior in almost every department. From Sam Worthington’s dull hero Perseus to the stilted script to the rush-job 3D, Titans is hardly titanic.

It even feels wanting next to Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief, the teen spin on classical mythology that so shamelessly stole its thunder earlier this year.

The problems set in early with a confusing opening that fails to establish the relationship between men and gods and why (let alone how) the former has declared war on the latter.

As a consequence, it’s hard to get too concerned when Hades (Ralph Fiennes) appears in Argos, threatening its destruction if its king does not sacrifice his daughter to the Kraken in a week’s time. (What, did they screw up his catalogue order?)

This arbitrary deadline does at least give the midsection some momentum, a buzz-cutted Worthington having joined up with Mads Mikkelsen’s band of war-weary Argonauts to foil the lord of the underworld’s scheme.

For all the set-pieces that follow, however – a scrap with monster scorpions, a pow-wow with sightless witches, a confrontation with a snake-tressed Medusa – it’s hard to shake the feeling this is just one big video game, the successful completion of one challenge leading immediately to another with little pause for humour, reflection or character interaction.

Throw in dialogue cheesier than Gorgon-zola and you’re left asking why so much cash was splashed making a Clash so unremittingly average

2 Stars

Soladrin wrote:Sounds like a... "rental"

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Why, when you know the kraken is going to attack from the sea... you stand around the docks?

Necros wrote:Did they at least leave out the robot owl? If so, I'll watch it.

Aduro wrote:If a movie has crappy story and all that, to me that's not a rental, it's a watch it on the big screen so you get to awe at the effects, then never bother with it again on the small screen. It's the really good movies I'll care to watch again.

Dreadwinter wrote:
Remember kids, if you are going to talk during the movie. At least be funny.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Sorry to be picky but i never understood what the Kraken was doing off the shores of Argos in the first version.

Guess he had gone for his summer hols to warmer climes.

will probably go and watch if it comes to the local cinema.