CLASH OF THE TITANS review: pantheon this

CLASH OF THE TITANS review: pantheon this

Apr 01

 

Okay, I need to make another up-front disclaimer: I find Greek mythology strangely compelling. For some reason the monsters, characters, creatures, symbolism and setting seem inherently interesting to me. I mean, the medusa’s gaze is sufficiently frightening even before giving her snakes for hair — it’s those little extra touches that tell of the wild imaginations of those nutty old Greeks, and I always have fun exploring these often confrontational fantasies. In addition, the Greek gods make a lot of sense to me, significantly more sense than the Christian idea of god that replaced them; they created humans to help keep them immortal — our prayers feed their lifelines, you see, and when we stop believing they fade away. The gods are greedy, jealous, solipsistic, and incredibly powerful, and these distinctly human feelings drive their behaviour. Contrast this with the pernicious, unpredictable god of the Old Testament and you’ll understand why I have an easier time ”getting” the Greek pantheon’s actions over this new-style god fellow’s. Anyway the point of all this is to indicate that if you don’t care for Greek mythology, Zeus and his merry band of flawed gods, or heroic storytelling in general, then feel free to knock 20 or 30 percent off my final score. Now, on with the review!

An orphan is taken in by kind-hearted, hard-working folk and raised as their own. The orphan grows into a prodigously talented young man, blessed with supernatural powers and a destiny inherited from his biological father. The orphan is taught how to fight, given weapons and friends, brutally tested for courage and strength of will, and then tasked with delivering a peaceful and presumably innocent place from imminent destruction by an evil alliance of overwhelming proportions. There’s a reason this precise plot rundown is applicable to Star Wars and (to an extent) Harry Potter as well as Clash Of The Titans: it works. Orphan characters automaticaly grab sympathy; humility and loyalty automatically grab respect; and a destiny resulting in the deliverance of innocence automatically grabs support. The details and the characters change to reflect the times, but the essential story is still compelling, and in Clash Of The Titans it worked for me. You can almost hold the movie beat-for-beat against A New Hope and connect the dots: some people will find this fun, others will find it crushingly predictable.

Sam Worthington plays Perseus, the orphan capable of ending the strife cooked up by the gods in their petty jealousy. Worthington’s fine in this role: he brings grit and charisma to it, and you actually get inklings of real emotion when he defies the gods again and again (and then again). Liam Neeson plays Zeus, and Ralph Fiennes plays his angry bro Hades; both actors ham it up to 11, and when this was combined with their hilariously over-the-top costumes I quickly bought into the silly world being thrown onto the screen in front of me. Other characters are hit-and-miss: Mads Mikkelsen plays an initially compelling character who is later wasted; Gemma Arterton plays demigod Io / obligatory love interest with an outrageously husky voice and incongruously pale complexion; and Jason Flemyng plays the husband of the woman impregnated by Zeus to bear his son, later allying with Hades and given super powers (that was a little convoluted, sorry about that), but Flemyng’s character is almost entirely useless in the overall scheme of things, except as yet another father figure against wish Perseus can rail.

The story has its ups and downs as well. While it moved quickly and gracefully enough to keep me entertained, I felt that most of the tension is spent too early. Perseus faces his most harrowing test — the medusa — at the end of the second act, and she makes an absolute mess of his gear and crew, leaving him virtually naked to take on the real threat of the film: Hades and his big old Kraken. The action reaches its intensity in the medusa’s den, and the climactic showdown against the Kraken is bemusingly abrupt, while the post-climactic showdown against Hades himself barely registers as a hiccup on the scale of impact in the story. The screenwriters should have given Perseus a few more allies at the end, and developed a few of his fellow adventurers a bit better. There is a lot of potential character going on, but it’s nearly all squandered instead of being harvested at the right time.

The worst offender in all this is Io. At first the screenwriters attempt to paint her in a “useful woman character” light, but she gets put in the refridgerator pretty quickly, and her demigodly powers eventually sum up to squat. She essentially serves as a guide and love interest for Perseus, but they could have added so much more to her character. At least she didn’t take her kit off or turn out to be an enemy spy — that would’ve been a little bit too predictable. The script itself is full of anachronistic dialogue and cheesy heroism, but it still feels true to the ballsy nature of Greek mythology of yore, and I didn’t take real issue with the dialogue, no matter how silly it got.

The visual effects are also mixed. The only convincing effects are the wings on the Pegasus and the amusing sparkles on Zeus’ silly god armour. Everything else — giant scorpions, the medusa, the Kraken and even Hades’ smoky means of teleportation — fail to sell on screen. In an effects-driven action flick like this, you’d want to make sure your VFX are up to snuff; no such luck here. To quickly address the inclusion of 3D in Titans — it is completely useless. Go see this in 2D if you can; a nice punchy film print will look significantly better than the digital copies anyway, and the 3D itself is laughably bad. The poor VFX people that had to trawl through the film scene-by-scene do a serviceable job, but you notice confusion around characters’ hair as it blows in the breeze, and wide shots of the ocean or of crowds inexplicably curve instead of receding smoothly into the background. The 3D is an absolute waste of time and money — save your five bucks and see it in 2D.

Before watching Titans I’d forgotten who Louis Letterier was, but now that I look him up it all makes sense: he made Unleashed and The Incredible Hulk (the Edward Norton reboot), and this track record is comparable to his latest offering: underdeveloped scripts thrown together with overcooked action sequences — a fun time at the movies, but nothing to write home about. Leterrier stages a pair of genuinely good action scenes in Titans: the scorpion fight and the duel with medusa stand out as the high points of the film. They’re shot tight and visceral (something you wouldn’t be able to do with 3D cameras; hence the 3D post-conversion) and the scenes carry a real sense of urgency.

Leterrier also develops the stakes quite well, introducing a palpable time limit and worst-case scenario, so the audience always knows what the stakes are at any given time. This helps to lend urgency to the non-action scenes, which are, again, hot-and-cold. Every step of Perseus’ journey gets progressively harder, but it also feels like we’re getting one step closer to stopping Hades and his massive Kraken from killing the poor Princess and her innocent city of Argos. Again, this might not work for everyone, but it somehow worked for me.

There is a good movie in Clash Of The Titans, but you have to bridge the gap to it yourself. If you see it and absolutely hate it, I can understand entirely where you’re coming from. The underdeveloped characters and patchy script certainly won’t win awards; nor will the workmanlike performances or sub-par CG work. If you enjoy a bit of classical heroism given a new lick of paint, or you think you’d like to see a man bleed scorpions, or you can’t wait for Sam Worthington to finally appear in a half-decent blockbuster, then Clash Of The Titans might be for you. No, really – a man bleeds giant scorpions in Clash Of The Titans. Maybe that should be the litmus test for admission to the movie: if you want to see a man’s blood turn into scorpions bigger than your house, see this movie. If you don’t, stay at home and read The Iliad instead.

Clash Of The Titans score

68/100