Clash of the Titans

Latest trailer here.

I'll always love the Harryhausen designs but I'm really looking forward to this. My only quibble so far is that I think they could have pushed Medusa even further away from Harryhausen's creation (though I do like the "beautiful" face).

I don't know about this one. This could be good pop corn or it could be just corn. Didn't really see the face.

Comparison shots here.

I kinda like the new medusa but the old one was pretty cool at the time. The new Cracken kinda reminds me of Dagoh from Conan II.

The Original will always have a place in my heart
(Filed under TBS, 'cause they used to show it A LOT)
But I do look forward to the remake.
Maybe not corn, but I'm pretty sure there will be cheese.....

I think it looks pretty decent, then again, I can separate remakes from the originals.

Liam Neeson as Zeus = WIN!!!

Stidgeon Witches look awesome! Kraken looks awesome!!!

Sam Worthington is hot.

Needless to say, I'll be seeing this one.

Special effects look great, and it looks to have a good cast, I'm just not sold on the director. I loved the original, hopefully they don't tarnish yet another classic.

I'm hoping that it isn't all flash

I'm hearing a bunch of mixed reviews on this, and probably wont be seeing it for a while anyway (reviews be damned). But my god, I just watched the original recently, and when ever I hear someone say how itl still holds up and this remake is unnecessary, I can't help but think it's some guy going by memory and not really comparing the two realistically.

Now, the current film can be a cluttered, disjointed mess. And I understand Clash was Ray's bow out from film making, and I loved it as a little kid. But i really just cannot understand how some people don't grasp that 30 years is enough of a bracer for a damn remake.

I was sorting through my thoughts yesterday after having seen the film. While re-organizing our closets, Madame Scandalous set aside a group of clothes hangars, saying, "These are empty, but good."

Then it hit me instantly: with some slight adjustment, that sums up my impression of Clash of the Titans:

Good, but empty.

---

The good:

Pegasus: not in the movie much, but when it is--wow. Absolutely wonderful VFX work. Made me want a flying horse.

Olympus: whoever designed the beautiful giant topographic map of the Earth upon whoch the Gods stand should be recognized. Beautiful set design. I also liked Zeus' armor, though not everybody in my group did.

Scorpion battle: at times a little too frenetic, and a little too long, but still pretty awesome. And any movie that features people riding in tents on the backs of giant scorpions wins some points in my book.

Cinematography: There are some gorgeous on-location shots in this film. Unfortunately, some bad greenscreen replacement early on during the fishing boat sequences detracts from the experience.

Zeus: He grows less interesting as the film goes on, but Horndog Zeus (seen in flashback) is awesome.



The empty:


Hades and the plot changes: Just didn't work for me. Almost every scene featuring Hades was a letdown. Didn't seem godlike and his shrouded-in-black-void appearance was unimaginative, and for the Lord of the Dead, he spent a lot of time in the land of the living. I didn't expect strict adherence to the 1981 version, but I found the choices they made here much less interesting than the original, and by no means do I consider that to be a great film. At least in the original we got to see other god like Athena, Hephaestus, a giant bird, and the two-headed dog.

Don't even get me started on the Bryan Singer-like disrespect of Bubo.


Calibos: I willingly admit a bias toward Harryhausen's designs, but come on--how is this even comparable? Calibos looked awful in this film--more like a Kingon burn victim than the cursed creature that inadvertently brought Perseus and Andromeda together in the original. His only saving grace is his initial savage attack on a soldier in Perseus' group. Other than that: nothing.

Between this, Hades, the terrible version of Charon the ferryman (looks like a bad automaton), I realize the Abomination's bland design was not an aberration, and really regret to say that I find Louis taste in creature design consistently uninspiring.


Perseus: I'm sure Sam Worthington has a lot of fans out there; this film just reminded me that I'm not one of them. Dude has the charisma of dry toast. He's not helped by the fact that Perseus is incredibly one-note, here, completely gutted of his love for Andromeda only to be replaced by daddy issues with Zeus. I don't know what it is about Hollywood and daddy issues but I've grown pretty tired of it. I'm not saying Harry Hamlin was launching acting schools with his performance, but at least his character was fueled by something else besides revenge and petulance.


Medusa: The entire sequence just fell short for me. Didn't like the choice to give Medusa the voice of a woman (as opposed to a monster), HATED the "snake face" that turns people to stone, and the geography of the scene was too difficult to follow with too many swooping cameras...it was like they were inside a rolling barrel which happened to be on fire.


Overall: A serviceable action pic which unfortunately forgets the "fun" part. Not a crapfest like Transformers 2 or Terminator: Salvation by any means, but too often lacking where it should have been improving.

I agree with most of that Scandy, although I thought Hades was one of the better characters in the movie. One of the few that actually did something with his character other then look pissed off.
And wow, I thought I was the only one not impressed with Sam Worthington. Not sure what people or Hollywood sees in this guy, but so far the two movies I've seen him in have left me very unimpressed. He was BLAND in Salvation, although for some odd reason everybody raved about his performance, and he's bland here. Now maybe he's got more acting ability in him and this is just what was asked of him for these roles, but as of now I can only think he's popular because he's really damn good looking (my wifes reaction to him, not mine ).
The special effects though take the cake in this film, 90% of the time they are fantastic. The best being Pegasus like you mentioned. Watching him run, fly, take a few steps while flying low to the ground, it was just amazing. The Kraken also looked great, but we don't see nearly enough of him.
And while you mention some bad design choices (yes the Charon the Ferryman was one of them for sure) I LOVED the look of the blind witches.
Overall I'd give it a 6/10, could have been much better, but considering the director it also could have been MUCH worse. In the end, I'd still rather watch the original, and before someone says it's just rose colored glasses or nostalgia, I saw it for the first time a few months ago and really liked it. It just has a certian charm about it that a lot of modern movies can't touch no matter the amount spent of them or the CGI overload. With that said, this will be a guilty pleasure of mine I'm sure when it hits DVD.

Scandalous wrote:
Don't even get me started on the Bryan Singer-like disrespect of Bubo.

This, more than anything else, was why I had zero interest in this remake.

Yes, apparently Sam didn't like Bubo. So why couldn't they have simply left him out? Why disparage the same thing you're trying to cash in on? It's just one aspect of projects like these that I truly despise.

I agree with most of that Scandy, although I thought Hades was one of the better characters in the movie. One of the few that actually did something with his character other then look pissed off.

...With that said, this will be a guilty pleasure of mine I'm sure when it hits DVD.

Ah, yes! I left out the Kraken and I agree that it did look great. I also liked that it did a pretty substantial amount of damage before being stopped by Perseus. And I agree about the witches. However, I didn't like The Eye at all--way too literal (let's make "the Eye a big eye!"), and looked like something out of a drugstore quarter machine. A small thing, but kind of symbolizes my impression of the film: equal parts things I really liked and really disliked. And yes, it definitely could have been worse...but at $15.00 + concessions, they don't get an ounce of credit for that!

My problems with Hades: he felt more like a wizard than a high-level god to me. In the original, the Gods don't interact directly with mortals--everything is done through signs and symbols, which made them seem much more imposing to me. And whereas it made sense in the original for Thetis, a lesser sea-goddess to use the Kraken, this version baffled me--Hades gave birth to a sea creature? And I don't know why, but I couldn't wrap my head around the Lord of the Dead directly showing up in person and killing people. Felt like it would be beneath him somehow.

It's a remake of a film based on myth, but he just didn't seem "godly" to me.

Sam Worthington is a handsome guy--that's me saying that. And more power to him; I can't count the number of bad actresses I'll tolerate due to their looks. But they're still bad actresses, and he's still blank as a piece of paper.

As you note, there's enough here to fit into "guilty pleasure" mode...this definitely fits into the category of something I'd enjoy a lot more after waiting for blu-ray. Not one of my favorites, but definitely enough here to check out again. I do agree with Harry Knowles of AICN, though, that mostly this movie really whets my appetite for a really good movie about gods and that's why I'm hopeful for IMMORTALS...

I agree with "good, but empty."

I decided well before seeing it that I was gonna turn off my brain and just try and watch it for what it was (cuz I knew there was NO WAY IN HELL they we're going to stick to the original, much less the actual mythology). It worked for me--I was entertained.

I think of all the story changes, the lack of the love story between Perseus and Andromeda pissed me off most. The Hades thing was second.

The hubby absolutely hated it with every fiber of his being.

What were his primary beefs?

In the group I saw it with one really liked it (Bruno), two hated it (my brother and friend), and I fell squarely in the middle.

He absolutely couldn't get past the changes. And he hated the characterizations of Zeus, Hades and Perseus. And he didn't like the way they completely ignored every other God/dess in the pantheon.

And, while I agree there was ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for the changes--I had decided going in that I was not going to that alone ruin it for me.