Considering that Johnny Cash’s autobiography Cash by Johnny Cash and How To Effectively Steal Funny Lines From Nick Hornby are the only two books I’ve ever read, it’s hard for me to say whether or not Charlie Dickens was a champion of expectations great.
Personally I say balls to them. Low expectations, that’s what you need. In all parts of life low expectations will help avoid massive disappointment, none more so than when checking out the latest version of Clash Of The Titans.
Sticking to the originals somewhat plodding plot, Clash Of The Titans tells the tale of Perseus, son of Zeus. After Zeus pulls the 12A friendly trick of raping a mortal, pretending to be her husband (that old chestnut), the offspring, demi-God Perseus, is thrown into the sea. Picked up by Pete Postelthwaite, the son grows up to be Sam Worthington, saviour of everything from Pandora to Kyle Reese. Being one of chisel jaw, Persues is charged with saving Argos from destruction so that generations to come could still purchase crap flatpack furniture and gaudy Elizabeth Duke jewellery…
Once you get passed the opening question of ‘Who the hell did Sam Worthington suck off to get the meteroic career rise he’s had?’ (and can I get that guys number?) there’s planty to enjoy in the new Clash. Plenty wrong too, but still plenty to enjoy.
Forgetting the ’3-D or not 3-D’ argument for a second, (my showing was 2-D and thanks to my amazingly special ability to judge whether things are very small or very far away, the impact of the third dimension (or lack of it) was minimal) the visuals are well-mixed between sets, make-up and CGI.
The fight scenes could never in a million pixels recapture the charm of Ray Harryhausen’s original but the French director, of Transporter fame, has a decent enough pedigree in that field having worked with an animatronic Jason Statham on multiple occasions. Sadly when the director does choose wholly CGI (for example Medusa) the results are painfully mediocre rather than refreshingly competent.
Sitting in the pro-column is the presence of great actors helping elevate the entire film from poor to okay. Pete, Liam, Ralph and Mads may ham it up, but how the hell else are you supposed to play Zeus and Hades? Subtle? As for the sure numeracy of the accents ranging from Aussie, to Scandinavian, to EssexBoy, they may be tittersome but did you ever think they’d speak Greek with subtitles in a $100,000,000 plus blockbuster?
Considering todays cynical audiences it’s surprising to see what the film-makers have left in. Flying horses? Check. Gods sitting on thrones? Check. Whether this will result in howls of laughter or a level of respect may depend on who the films being marketed at. Just one look at the poster of Perseus holding Medusa’s head toward the Kraken may give a clue that this remake is for fans of the original. But these fans probably didn’t want it in the first place.
But as I say, low expectations. Ignore every mildly positive word in this review and you just may be pleasantly surprised. It’s certainly not bad enough to provoke too much wrath, whoever you worship.
I feel that despite your warnings this review has just raised my expectations above the necessarily low level requiered for enjoying this film
Comment by Gordon Scott — March 31, 2010 @ 5:22 pm
I’m not certain how large might be an audience made up purely of “fans of the original”, but I can’t imagine it would be huge. “Familiar with the original,” sure, but even Ray Harryhausen’s loyal worshippers would surely agree the 1981 film is more than roomy enough for improvement.
In any event, I certainly believed that before this film was released, and I still do. I don’t think that this is the film that makes those improvements; essentially it’s just refreshed the cheese, rather than introduced a new taste. But I guess it does make the title more profitable for a new generation of kids hooked on 3D and CGI (and, as usual with so much big-money movies, leaves open the narrative possibility for a sequel, perhaps even a franchise). Speaking of Titans’ 3D and CGI, the former strikes me as being a gimmicky late add-on to farm the current trend rather than a means to enhance the movie with a variety of creative visual options (suprise!). It isn’t used to any real effect, the film works perfectly well without it and my only gripe about the 3D in Titans is that I had to pay extra for the dumb eyewear when it wasn’t really necessary. At the showing we attended, the trailer for Streetdance3D, of all things, had immensely more spectacular 3D. As for the CGI, the effects were technically and aesthetically good, but in this day and age that technical and aesthetic bar has been raised to a height where audiences would settle for nothing less, surely.
I am, however, a sucker for mythology and monsters, and have been since days glued to Harryhausen treasures on the box that were even more ancient than Titans ’81. There was no way I was not going to see this on the big screen, but no way was I going all on my adult self. I took a helpful 9 year-old to cover my embarrassment, because, let’s face it, this is really a kid’s film.
I went with the recommended low expectations, and came away dissatisfied with nothing more, really, than the feeling I’d been stiffed for redundant 3D glasses. My 9-year-old went because he wanted to see the Kraken and the giant scorpions. He wished there’d been more monsters, but he did give it 9 out of 10. And if I was 9, probably so would I.
Comment by D K Roberts — April 14, 2010 @ 9:15 pm