The premise may seem far-fetched, but not if you consider that Morocco offered bomb-sniffing monkeys to the “coalition of the willing” for the Iraq War. The leader of the G-Force team is an unconventional human scientist named Ben. The guinea pigs are cast as racial stereotypes.
Clash of the Titans would be more entertaining if it were filmed like Remember the Titans.
It would be awesome to see a bunch of mythological beasts form teams and play football. Better yet, have Denzel Washington give a motivating speech to the cast of monsters in a locker room. The kraken could be the quarterback while some centaurs play tackle. Instead we get just a rehash of the 1981 movie, which was shot in the same stop-motion style as Jason and the Argonauts. This version becomes easily forgettable, especially since audiences just endured Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief.
In Greek mythology, the Gods were infamous for their adultery, but it never occurred to them to be discreet. While cheating on their partners and leaving bastard children behind, they never once thought to use Ashley Madison. Perseus is one such example, born due to an affair between Zeus and a human empress. Subsequently, the King discovers the empress has cheated on him and tries to kill baby Perseus out of spite. Luckily he is rescued by a kindly fisherman who raises him as his son. The story jumps forward to when Perseus is a full grown man (Sam Worthington, or “dude from Avatar”).
One day our hero is just quietly fishing at sea, only to come across a giant statue being toppled at the edge of a cliff. Hades then appears in the form of a “smoke monster” and kills the humans who demolished it. It’s the first sign for Perseus that chaos is about to reign in his life as he is pulled into a crazy adventure full of plot holes. All that’s left is for Jacob to appear and give some vague and ambiguous advice and suddenly this is a bad episode of Lost.
The plot revolves around a conflict between humanity and the Olympian Gods. The Gods themselves looks like something that was fashioned by a heavy metal band. Zeus (Liam Neeson) wears armour that displays more chrome than the Silver Surfer. Meanwhile Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes, ends up looking like an uber-goth Rob Zombie combined with Gandalf. Even a minor character, King Cepheus, reappears as a mutated freak, making him look like a reject member of GWAR. Next thing you know, the film will start to use a rock-opera soundtrack and a cameo will be made by KISS.
Based on their stellar costume design and metal attitude, the Gods assume that humanity should act like a bunch of fans for their sheer awesomeness. However, mankind has been somewhat rebellious lately, so Zeus calls a board meeting to figure out how to punish them. Hades then suggests releasing the Kraken, a giant squid monster that’s comparable to Godzilla. Zeus is convinced to go along with this idea, despite the fact that Hades is an obvious villain with a motive for revenge.
This continues to be a big plot hole throughout the movie, since the story revolves around Perseus trying to find a way to kill the Kraken. Several times Zeus keeps sending him kick ass stuff to accomplish this task. Just by wondering through the woods he finds a magic sword, a Pegasus to ride on, a fairy god mother, and a magic coin that acts as a key to the Underworld. If his journey were made any more convenient, Perseus would be riding around in a Helicoptor with a mounted laser gun and heat seeking missiles. Ironically, the hero rejects this arsenal and opts for killing beasts the old fashioned way. Using a rusty old blade, a little elbow grease, and more guts than the army from 300.
The dialgue in this movie is painfully contrived. There is one scene where the female protagonist Io gives the default love confession, as she states something like “As your gaurdian Angel, I’ve loved you all my life Perseus“. It’s merely an attempt to ad some artificial romance to an otherwise manly action flick. In comparison, we get a much more convincing performance out of a badass desert warlock known as a Djinn. He can’t speak normally, so his speech consists only of the occasional “Haa” followed by some demonic gibberish. Yet somehow he seems more interesting than anybody else, although thats not saying much. Sadly, he just seems like a rip off of the Sand people from the Star Wars franchise.
In conclusion, the main story just consists mostly of going from point A to B to C. First Perseus has to find three witches, then decapitate the head of the Medusa, and finally goes back to slay the Kraken. On paper it sounds like the premise for levels of a video game. All that’s really happening is watching the protagonist collecting keys to get to the next dungeon. Hades ends up providing the ultimate boss fight, but it’s over in about a minute. So save yourself the effort of watching this CGI massacre and spend your money on a game rental instead, like God of War 3.
Tags: clash of the titans, Liam Neeson, Perseus, Sam Worthington