Clash of the Titans — High Quality Greek Action
Ahhhh . . .Clash of the Titans. I still have fond family memories of sitting around my old TV with my dad, asking him all about Greek mythology as we reveled in the original Clash’s stop-motion glory. Then I grew up, learned that Clash of the Titans pretty much got Greek mythology completely wrong, and moved on to other deeper movies, but I am still able to watch the original Clash and enjoy its cheesy action sequences, overly dramatic dialogue, and robotic owls, and I am the exact type of person that the new Clash of the Titans was made for.
Let’s get one thing straight. There are a lot of people out there complaining about how this new Clash doesn’t have a deep story and blah blah blah, and to a certain extent they are right, but honestly, I don’t know what they expected. We know the Perseus myth. Whether we are fans of the original Clash or just knowledgeable about Greek mythology in general, most of us know a bit about who Perseus is and how his story goes. It’s not like Louis Leterrier set out to totally reinvent the Perseus myth. He just wanted to tell a story in an entertaining way, and he did.
So that’s what you are going to get if you go to see Clash of the Titans. You are basically seeing what the old school Clash would be if we had the technology we have now back then. It’s full of awesome fight scenes, snappy one-liners, and genuinely likable (if not a little cliche) characters. Personally, I don’t see a problem with this.
The changes that were made to the plot were made for the better. Perseus works well as an angry and vengeful, yet still quite human protagonist. Ditching the “save the princess” plot line and instead shifting Perseus’ romantic interest over to Io, was a bold move, but all in all it worked quite well, and actually makes the movie feel a bit less hokey. Sam Worthington and Gemma Arterton do a great job with both characters, and the romance, while believable, isn’t shoved in your face at all.
I’ve never been a big fan of Hades being the bad guy in Greek mythology movies. He was never characterized as evil in Greek myths, and I think he gets a raw deal in American movies just because he is associated with the underworld. That being said, Ralph Fiennes succeeded in portraying one of the most true to myth interpretations of Hades I have seen in a long time (other than the totally evil part). He is pale skinned, soft spoken, socially awkward, and generally weird to be around, and Fiennes hit this on the mark.
The rest of the cast did a bang-up job as well. Everyone from the blue flamey guy to the many troops that went with Perseus to the underworld only to inevitably die to Medusa’s strangely sexy gaze. Liam Neeson’s Zeus was phenomenal. He was able to portray both the epic godly side of Zeus, and the spiteful horn-dog side in a convincing manner. Honestly, I just have to give the cast their props. They did a great job with the characters they were given.
As for the action itself, it was damn high quality. The fights were all well choreographed, the special effects were awesome (and major props for using some actual stop-motion in there). The film outdid itself at every turn. Hell, one of the main antagonists is a king who bleeds giant scorpions. How the hell do you get cooler than that? My only complaint is that some action scenes are a bit anti-climactic. The banishment of Hades to the underworld, for example, was over in a couple of seconds, and that could have used a bit more flourish since this is a movie that sells itself on its action anyway.
In fact, other than the random anti-climaxes, I only have one other complaint about the movie, and that is its implementation of 3-D, or should I say non-implementation of 3-D. Honestly, I know this was a 3-D conversion, but I could barely tell I was watching a 3-D movie. 3-D is really used in one of two ways, either to make things pop out at you during intense moments, or to give the whole movie a feeling of depth. Honestly, this movie did neither. Most of the time, I could take my 3-D glasses off and see no difference. Frankly, Clash of the Titans doesn’t need 3-D to be awesome. It’s a good movie either way, but I’d recommend seeing it in plain 2-D.
If you would allow me to get geeky here for a minute, let me say that Clash of the Titans is like a good pencil and paper role-playing game. A bunch of characters come together around one cause (in this case, save a city from the Kraken), overcoming challenge after challenge, all while gaining awesome equipment along the way. Anyone who dies does so in epic fashion, and everyone else lives on to save the day with their flying horses or giant scorpion buses. In short, it is an excuse to be epic and there is nothing bad about that.
So, let everyone complain about story this and story that. I honestly had a great time at Clash of the Titans, but I went into it expecting an action-packed romp through loosely interpreted Greek mythology. If that’s what you want, then catch Clash of the Titans, it’s worth the price of admission. If not, stop whining before I release the Kraken!
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
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