08/01/10 - Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans (2010, 106 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800320/

I didn't have high hopes for the remake of Clash of the Titans but I was hoping it would be a fun movie at least. I nostalgically love the older movie so I gave this film minimal chance of reaching that level. Let's see.

The film follows Perseus (Sam Worthington) as he goes on a quest to both save the city of Argos and fight back at the gods themselves. Going with him on this journey is a little band of warriors but his main allies here are Draco (Mads Mikkelsen) and Io (Gemma Arterton). They learn that to save Argos and defeat the Kraken that will be unleashed they will need Medusa's head so as to turn the Kraken into stone. This becomes the new objective of the quest. Other roles are played by: Liam Neeson as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades, and Jason Felmyng as Calibos / Acrisius.

Well it's incredibly obvious that this film doesn't even remotely match up with the old one. First, there's just way too much CGI and everything everywhere. I get a sense from the movie that every scene needed to have some incredible over-the-top effect that stuns you. No movie needs this. I mean, there's these prominent action scenes all packed so close together at the beginning: the attack on Perseus's family by Hades, the attack of Hades on the soldiers of Argos, the battle with Calibos, and the scorpion battle. This is at the forty-five minute mark and there's already been four big battles? Also, in each and every one of these battles that is bloated with CGI there's one of those seemingly now standard effects where the action goes to slow-mo and then ramps up really quickly and then goes back to slow-mo. I think there's a name for this but I don't know what it is. Anyway, my point is that's way too many action scenes in my opinion as we hardly know Perseus at this point. There's also just way too many characters in general as we have all of Perseus's group, the gods, and the prominent people of Argos. The film as a whole just tries to do too much and ends up stumbling. It wants to be more than it should be.

A little more on this character thing: Io and Calibos come off as completely pointless. Sure they pop up right when they are needed to for the plot's sake but that's pretty much it. I don't feel that they do anything except just show up at the nick of time to make the situation better or worse. I remember in the older movie how Calibos was a great villain. There was no comparison to Io so I can't say anything there. The only character that comes off as pretty cool from this film (even counting Perseus) is Draco. He's a good fighter and has just enough character development to make him relatable. The hunters that join up with Perseus are also fun but they are fun because their only real purpose is comic relief so they don't fully count. Perseus himself is overall pretty bland.

A minor complaint I have with the movie is Hades. First, the character just looks stupid: he's all hunched over all the time and looks more like a crow in my opinion than anything really scary. But the worst thing of all is this really corny raspy voice that Fiennes uses all the time. I guess it's supposed to be otherworldly or something but it just comes off to me as incredibly annoying. This is only a minor complaint because Hades doesn't actually factor into enough of the movie for these quibbles to be a big annoyance.

About the only good parts of the movie are the Medusa fight and the grand finale. The Medusa fight is actually well done because it's really tense and because Medusa looks really cool. It's a nice blend of the old images that exist of Medusa and the new CGI abilities. She's quicker than probably any other Medusa and this adds to why this is a good battle. Draco also has a really cool death here which was fitting of the character. The other good part of the film is the grand finale where Perseus barely saves Argos from the Kraken's destruction. Honestly, this isn't a great part of the movie except for the scenes when the Kraken emerges and there's all this chaos as Perseus barely makes it there in time. Usually when scenes like this happen there's a shaky camera and action all over the place (such as the scorpion battle and pretty much any of the big actions sequences at the start of the movie) but here it's actually really easy to follow how everything is panning out which is great. I think most scenes of this nature (this movie and others) don't do this enough so I would like to single out how much I liked this. The bad thing though is that the scene is over so quick. It would have been nicer to have a little bit more here since this was the conclusion to everything.

Overall, I gave this film a 4/10. Clash of the Titans just wants to be too much of a spectacle and it ends up failing as a movie. The action is too over-the-top most of the time and the only cool character is Draco. It's a far cry from the amazing Clash of the Titans from 1981. I will finally add that I liked the little homage to the original with the short inclusion of Bubo the owl. It's a little thing but it worked really well.