What happened to this movie?
Clash Of The Titans may be up for a few Razzie Awards in 2011.
I anticipated a futuristic fantasy film about ancient arguments between gods and men – an epic hero's journey (a la Chris Vogler) back in the time when there were lots of gods celebrated for giving in to all of the deadly sins – greed, lust, avarice, sloth etc. Religion was fun back then and as dangerous as it is today with just as much fanaticism and terrorism.
Instead, we got a Titans movie that seemed to be written by gamers for gamers with next to no character development just so they could rush into action sequences that felt empty, meaningless and pointless.
Problem #1 – everyone had long ancient Greek hair except Perseus Worthington who kept the same style as he had in Avatar. Perseus is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman thus making him a fairly powerful demigod. But he kept stupidly fighting to remain a 'man' when most of the men in the movie were idiots.
This wasn't the time to 'man-up' – it was the time to god-up.
Problem #2 – after a violent battle, the intriguing and fierce giant scorpions became suddenly tame – so tame in fact, people started riding around on them! And building little homes on their backs!
Problem #3 – Mads Mikkelsen as Draco did his best to hide the cheese in this half-baked burger of a script – but not even with the godly help of Liam Zeus Neeson and Ralph Hades Fiennes could any lactose-intolerant audient escape the cheesey McCheese that is Clash Of The Titans.
They may as well have called the main monster McKraken and asked me if I wanted fries with that.
There were lots of sweeping shots that were taken directly from Lord Of The Rings and even a kind of crater that looked suspiciously like Mordor after a fire department had got there first.
Problem #4 – after learning that Aphrodite – the sexy and most beautiful goddess of all – had a big part in Andromeda being offered up as a sacrifice of appeasement so that Perseus Worthington could save h
er from McCheesey McKraken – we don't even get to see her or her wrath.
WTF?
People in the cinema were laughing and I mean LARFING OUT LOUD at the screen. Yet paradoxically, the comic relief characters were confused shifting sands of unfunniness. Even the costuming was… odd. The gods frocked up like they were on Flinders St wandering around looking for the Mardi Gras Parade. They weren't heading for Mt Olympus – they were heading for the Hordern Pavillion. They would have been a big hit there.
Growing up, I lived and breathed ancient Greek and Roman mythology which made Catholicism and my one-god church seem so boring by comparison. I've been keenly anticipating this film and nearly wet myself with joy when I rocked up to the cinema and found out it was in 3D.
I came out shell-shocked.
If you like this kind of movie when it's done well, it may be best to check out the Clash Of The Titans film made in 1981 with Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith and Ursula Andress.
May the ancient gods not see this movie – or they'll be back to bash up the box office.