Friday, April 2, 2010

Clash of the Titans review

Spoiler alert, for the 3 people out there that don't know the myth of Perseus or the original CotT.

My wife and I went out to see the new Clash of the Titans tonight. We both enjoyed it, but the whole time I was watching the movie, right from the very beginning, I was sorta annoyed at the way they had to Hollywood-ize EVERYTHING about this movie. (Yes, they made the ending with a potential for a sequel...fucking Hollywood.)

Now, having studied script-writing (and being in the middle of writing one myself at the moment) I know the conventions. Character drives plot. And writers reverse engineer motivation from the events in order to make a satisfying (cathartic) experience for the movie-goer.

But for me, the Perseus myth has always primarily been about his confrontation with Medusa, not with his confrontation with the sea monster (I think the original is called "cetus" or something like that--the original borrowed the name Kraken from Scandinavian sailor legends.) That was more of a tack-on. In this movie, defeating the Kraken--and thereby Hades--is the main motivation of Perseus.

Something about that just didn't jibe with me. I didn't really like the glittery 70's type Flash Gordon special effects for the Olympians' armor either. But that's just a nit-pick.

Anyway, the action scenes were fun, the monsters looked cool (saw it in 2D, 3D might be even cooler...), and while the story was even more removed from the original myth than the 1981 original movie, it does work. My wife thought it was great, because she's never read the original myth nor seen the original CotT yet.

What I liked--Perseus struggling to reject his 'hero nature.'
What I didn't like--Perseus's main goal being to defeat the kraken.
See it if--oh, come on, you're gonna see this eventually if you're a D&D geek. If you're big into mythology, though, you may wanna see it on the cheap.

8 comments:

  1. Hmm, I'm intrigued.

    Apparently the writers of this flick are toying around with ideas for a big budget Cthulhu movie. If CotT whets the public's appetite for giant oceanic monsters, I'm thinking that will probably happen.

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  2. I like the whole 3D/CGI thing, but the previews of Medusa didn't look nearly as cool as the original Harryhausen effects (I actually watched the original CoT a couple times last year BEFORE the re-make was even announced...go figure...so the images are fresh in my head). Can you make a comparison between the demon soul-sisters?

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  3. Thanks for the review. I did not like the first CotT (don't get me started on the mechanical owl), but when Harryhausen is involved I go. I'll go see this one and my expectation are low. I'm more interested in How to Train Your Dragon, but I might do a double feature.

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  4. I guess Hollywood will make a Cthulhu movie where some oh-so-cool American kills Cthulhu, gets the girl, saves the day and only evil cultists and foreigners will die.

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  5. Khouni, I'm not sure HPL would have entirely disapproved of such a plot! ;)

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  6. Well if he isn't supposed to be killable, why does C'thulhu have stats in Deities and Demigods?

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  7. By all reports the 3D version is awful, due to the film being created fully in 2D then a rush-job of 3D conversion after the fact once the studio suddenly decided they wanted a 3D film instead. All the reviews at movie websites seem to be mentioning just how poor and distracting the 3D effect is on this one. If you have yet to see it, consider yourself warned....

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  8. Clash of the Titans 2010 was horrible. There was no substance or tension to the story and not enough bizarre visuals. All I remember was the owl being tossed aside, the one guy getting his musical instrument broken just to pull out another one, and the blue guy with bright eyes turning to a bomb and blowing himself up. Seemed like Perseus left with a half dozen men and about 150 ended up dead. Medusa fight was between decent and bad - classical Greek appearance? The Kraken was cool too for a couple seconds. Then it was dead. Not enough interesting fights thrown in to make up for a lackluster story is the bottom line.

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