Clash of the Titans
Well, I don't have a clear enough memory of either the original movie, or the legend(s) of Perseus, so I can't speak to faithfulness. I saw the movie in 2D, which is probably just as well, and it was... reasonably entertaining. I don't feel robbed of my time or enriched from watching it. It felt rushed and sometimes inconsistent, but enjoyable enough that I wouldn't call it bad.
Perseus the baby is found. Next scene, Persus is a kid talking to his adopted father. Next scene (which somehow warrants a "12 years later," when the last one didn't) he's an adult and current plot kicks in. Sometimes you wouldn't think much of that, but the whole movie felt rushed from scene to scene with brief travel scenes interspersed. This often bothers me about movies these days, as if building character/plot has to be done in short cuts.
I'm baffled at the inclusion, existence, and point of the djinn. Slight tweaks to the script, and they could have been avoided entirely.
There are many moments of almost-painful coincidence. You can blame fate, or the gods, or whatever, but from the point of view of the narrative, does it all have to be that perfect and precise? Almost every scene with Io felt this way, and she's a cursed mortal rather than god. This sort of goes with the rushed feeling, in that it feels like anything they could cut was cut, so what's left is everything happening exactly on the marks.
The kraken was suitably monstrous and huge. The witches and Charon were... eh... so-so. Pegasus looked pretty darn cool and I really liked Medusa. I also liked the look of the gods on Olympus, though I think Hades could have used a little (I hate to use the term, but) sparkle to match, especially toward the end.
The message about whether men should be worshiping gods or not is not only unclear, but scattered.
Perseus' fisherman dad complains some about the gods because he's not catching anything. The fisherman's wife points out that men are not honoring the gods enough these days. The fisherman retorts that he's tired of "being thankful for scraps." Err... hmm... okay. There was never bounty to be had? I dunno...
Then we get the soldiers of Argos disrespecting the gods for their kingdom. Perseus' family is killed in the crossfire when Haded directly retaliates. So now Perseus is pissy directly at Hades. Okay, that's understandable. He's probably not too happy with the other gods either, but this seems to be personal.
Hades threatens Argos. Perseus signs on because it gives him a chance to get back at Hades (not necessarily "the gods"), but he keeps insisting he's a man even when his demi-god status seems apparent to everyone else. Off on his quest, he's tested by a soldier and - though never having used a sword before in his life - he readily disarms and bests the soldier. It's obvious to everyone this is because he's part god, and that's the only reason the quest has any chance of success. What's he say? "I'm going to do this as a man."
Whoa... really? Dude, if you're going to do this as a man, you'd better go get your fishing net, 'cause Perseus the Fisherman ain't gonna do jack in a fight.
Then he snubs a direct and obvious gift from the gods. Then he meets Zeus, rejects an offer to go to Olympus, and insists on fighting as a man even if it means his death. Sheesh. Pride to go around, but at least he's consistently sticking to his guns, right? Well, no. He accepted Zeus' coin to use as payment to get to Medusa. Umm... huh...
He accepts Pegasus' help getting back in time. I can't think he honestly believed that was somehow coincidence rather than divine intervention. And in facing down Hades, he basically calls on Zeus' aid. But in the end, he just says he's going to live as a man.
...
This Perseus is all over the place really. In some ways, that's very human of him - to accept aid when there isn't much choice. But dayumn... As far as storytelling, that's pretty shoddy. The message here is... uh... hell, I don't know.
Perseus the baby is found. Next scene, Persus is a kid talking to his adopted father. Next scene (which somehow warrants a "12 years later," when the last one didn't) he's an adult and current plot kicks in. Sometimes you wouldn't think much of that, but the whole movie felt rushed from scene to scene with brief travel scenes interspersed. This often bothers me about movies these days, as if building character/plot has to be done in short cuts.
I'm baffled at the inclusion, existence, and point of the djinn. Slight tweaks to the script, and they could have been avoided entirely.
There are many moments of almost-painful coincidence. You can blame fate, or the gods, or whatever, but from the point of view of the narrative, does it all have to be that perfect and precise? Almost every scene with Io felt this way, and she's a cursed mortal rather than god. This sort of goes with the rushed feeling, in that it feels like anything they could cut was cut, so what's left is everything happening exactly on the marks.
The kraken was suitably monstrous and huge. The witches and Charon were... eh... so-so. Pegasus looked pretty darn cool and I really liked Medusa. I also liked the look of the gods on Olympus, though I think Hades could have used a little (I hate to use the term, but) sparkle to match, especially toward the end.
The message about whether men should be worshiping gods or not is not only unclear, but scattered.
Perseus' fisherman dad complains some about the gods because he's not catching anything. The fisherman's wife points out that men are not honoring the gods enough these days. The fisherman retorts that he's tired of "being thankful for scraps." Err... hmm... okay. There was never bounty to be had? I dunno...
Then we get the soldiers of Argos disrespecting the gods for their kingdom. Perseus' family is killed in the crossfire when Haded directly retaliates. So now Perseus is pissy directly at Hades. Okay, that's understandable. He's probably not too happy with the other gods either, but this seems to be personal.
Hades threatens Argos. Perseus signs on because it gives him a chance to get back at Hades (not necessarily "the gods"), but he keeps insisting he's a man even when his demi-god status seems apparent to everyone else. Off on his quest, he's tested by a soldier and - though never having used a sword before in his life - he readily disarms and bests the soldier. It's obvious to everyone this is because he's part god, and that's the only reason the quest has any chance of success. What's he say? "I'm going to do this as a man."
Whoa... really? Dude, if you're going to do this as a man, you'd better go get your fishing net, 'cause Perseus the Fisherman ain't gonna do jack in a fight.
Then he snubs a direct and obvious gift from the gods. Then he meets Zeus, rejects an offer to go to Olympus, and insists on fighting as a man even if it means his death. Sheesh. Pride to go around, but at least he's consistently sticking to his guns, right? Well, no. He accepted Zeus' coin to use as payment to get to Medusa. Umm... huh...
He accepts Pegasus' help getting back in time. I can't think he honestly believed that was somehow coincidence rather than divine intervention. And in facing down Hades, he basically calls on Zeus' aid. But in the end, he just says he's going to live as a man.
...
This Perseus is all over the place really. In some ways, that's very human of him - to accept aid when there isn't much choice. But dayumn... As far as storytelling, that's pretty shoddy. The message here is... uh... hell, I don't know.
The message here is... uh... hell, I don't know. Sounds like they didn't either.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that seems about right. Zeus is similarly all over the place, even though he has fewer scenes. He goes from "god who loves his mortals too well to take serious action" to Mister "okay, Hades, we'll do it your way." Then he continues to aid the one person who can stop the plan he's agreed to set in motion. At the end you could argue he planned it all, but there's absolutely no sense of that. No hints of conniving along the way or last-minute "I love it when a plan comes together" reveals. Like father, like son? And other observation I forgot to mention: Dang there's a lot of Sam Worthington leg. It's strange to realize, but the amount of male thigh in the movie seemed astoundingly high. Not necessarily offensive, just surprising somehow.
ReplyDelete