Clash of the Titans review

Between my second grade love of dinosaurs and my fourth grade interest into the paranormal, there was my third grade love and interest in Greek mythology. I vaguely remember the story and characters both this and the original film are based off of, but not enough to toss around facts and what not. But I will say that just about everything in Greek mythology is pretty damn interesting and in the right hands can be made into a working and exciting film. The original "Clash of the Titans" was filled with Ray Harryhousen monster creatures and wall to wall royal British performers. In addition to that it was one of those high adventure, glory to all fantasy pictures that worked well then and still kind of does today. Now to Warner Brothers "Clash of the Titans" of 2010 we have a might of a mixed bag.

At issue is primarily the reason in which our hero Perseus (Sam Worthington) goes on the quest. I'm more than willing to put aside my notions of Greek mythology and familiarity with the original film for whatever said reason is, and in this case it's revenge for killing his foster family at sea. Ok, that works, hell the one thing about those "God of War" games I do enjoy is the story of the man who seeks to kill the Gods for what they've done to him. However here the tone and the idea behind it seems to twist in the wind and often change making some key plot points questionable and really killing the emotion of things. The tone is another bother throughout the film; advertised as a pre-summer action blockbuster that gives us a fantasy world style closer to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth, making it a dark, muddy and war-torn world; whereas what we get is a mixture of that and that high adventure of the original movie. Sometimes it's a noticeable thing and sometimes it eases on by, it all depends on what happening.

Yet with these flaws I did still have a good time watching "Clash of the Titans". The enjoyed almost all the set designs, costumes, weapons and CGI design. It was great seeing Ralph Finnes and Liam Neeson as Zeus and Hades and the look of the God's suits of armor was different and a pleasing bit of creativity. The action sequences for the most part work well, sans this bizarre timing issue in which it seems like as the movie progresses the battles are shorter, but well blocked. For example the giant scorpion sequence feels like a good fifth-teen minute bout, where as Medusa and the Kraken breeze through pretty quickly. Director Louis Leterrier is no stranger to heavy action pictures by the way, cutting his teeth under the french Jerry Bruckheimer, Luc Besson. Leterrier directed "Transporter 2" (my favorite of the series), "Unleashed" (my favorite Jet Li martial arts film) and the one that brought him up in the world, Marvel and Universal's reloading of "The Incredible Hulk". His work on the Hulk shines through for being one of Marvel's best movies, jumping into that comic world of the Hulk and bringing in the love that people had for the book and the tv show and making fit together better than Ang Lee, while not making it just an action picture. Furthermore he had a great cast, didn't misuse or miss a chance to let they strut their stuff in a big budget movie and had some fantastic action sequences. In my mind his 'Hulk' picture was miles better than the heavy handed and often dull "Iron Man".

But even with that under his belt some of his look and feel are missing from 'Clash...' and instead is aimed at presenting a faster paced action film without caring as much for what's going on with the characters. Even in "Transporter 2" a great deal of time is spent with the family of the kidnapped son and seeing Franks connection with the boy so that it all means something more than bullets flying and cars crashing. Some of these work well and some are like I said earlier, ended too soon. But in the end it feels like a better version of Stephen Sommers' "The Jungle Book". In fact that's the best movie comparison I have for this (barring animals throwing things at one another and all that jazz). There's some nice work here, but it doesn't hit any homeruns or go that extra mile to become more. Worthington as a hero I think does better with "Avatar" than this simply because he's a fairly hollow character here, which might be why the tone shifts around so much. Gemma Arterton sells herself well and actually managed to make me look forward to "Prince of Persia". She has that perfect observant voice and a look that's both beautiful, but more realistic looking than Hollywood looking. But the badass award really should go to Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Draco the leader of the small band of soldiers aiding Perseus. Time after time he delivers impressive combat skills in the action sequences and plays a better version of that tough as nails, but ya love em' character.

"Clash of the Titans" is not really what this film is, but more or less an easy way to capitalize on the name and give a slightly twisted up version of that story. One that's fun enough of a mixed bag that agrees with me. Not unlike my feelings towards the last two Harry Potter. This is adventure in it's purest form so it's flaws can be... tolerated slightly more, however I'd have loved to completely dig into the film and run with it all the way. But perhaps with this succeeding it will open the doors to more Greek themed adventure flicks that I can completely love.