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.
The making of The Spirit is unfathomable, other than to cash in on the success of the Sin City franchise. It has the same graphic style as muted colours fill the background while occasionally one random object, like a tie, is given a blast of bright colour. The unoriginality doesn’t stop there, as this default Super Hero flick follows several pre-determined formulas to progress the plot.
As if we didn’t get enough of Christian Bale’s coughing shouts as Batman in The Dark Night, or Rorschach’s grating and harsh dialogue from Watchmen, this film serves up the left-overs of the tired narrative monologue. The film starts off with the protagonist hero “the Spirit” running around on rooftops while describing his city through metaphors. If you can get past the voice that sounds like sandpaper rubbing up against a cheese grater, you hear about his beloved city and his fetishism for its gritty and concrete features. Now all he has to do is pose epically next to some Gargoyle statues in the rain and a lightning bolt in the background completes the cliché.
The Spirit’s powers feature an enhanced recovery time from injury. He could be shot in the head and have several bones shattered, yet still be able to heal within a few hours, if not minutes. All he’s missing now are steel claws that come out of his fists and some yellow spandex to become the next Wolverine.
Spider-Man gets rippe
d off also, with Samuel L. Jackson playing the lead antagonist simply known as the “Octopus”. He is thus named because he has an obsessive compulsive tendency to own 8 of everything. Although at first this seems convenient for his villainy, wielding 8 guns, it raises the question as to how practical his compulsion would be. Would this mean he has to wash his hands 8 times after each fight? Does he own 8 toasters and insist on having 8 slices of bread for breakfast each morning? With comic book logic like that he might as well identify himself with a more formidable name like “Dr. Octagon”.
As for the villain’s motive, he seems determined to gain immortality and then take over the world. In the meantime, he runs a drug cartel with a gang of cloned goons that have laughably low IQs. It’s like an episode of Pinky and the Brain, with the mad scientist’s intellect being frustrated by his bumbling imbecile henchmen (nARF).
There is a lot of back story as to how he plans to accomplish this goal of world domination. In a nutshell, he has to invent some magic juice that has more power than Redbull and Gatorade combined. This involves a mystical vase which contains the blood of Hercules, which when combined with the power of a serum he’s developed, will turn him into a God. The Spirit is his only competition, since he was a test subject of the same serum, if he drank the magic potion he would gain the same Godly power.
There are also several romantic sub-plots whereby the Spirit has a number of conflicting emotions on the women involved in his lifetime. This involves a hot nurse, a sexy diamond thief, a French belly dancer, and a leather clad policewoman. Oddly enough he even scores with death incarnate, represented as a mythological temptress. Sadly these tacky fantasy women only made me wish for my own death.
To wrap things up, the good guys and the bad guys duke it out in the end, the sub-plot of the romance is somewhat resolved, and vague indications are given at the possibility of a sequel. To help bear the burden of that possibility, it would be better to go home and drink spirits rather than watching the movie with the same name.
There’s way too much sucking happening in Daybreakers, even if this movie is about Vampires.
The first vampire movie of 2010 could only have been worse if it were the new installment of the Twilight Saga. But this one comes close to that abysmal level of film making by imagining a world ruled by Vampies that is somehow pretty boring, allowing random accidents to drive forward the plot, and rely on cartoon-like gore scenes when all else fails.
The movie opens and we’re introduced to a girl writing her suicide note in April of 2019. Just as we are musing over whether the fact she’s not posting this to a social network is a hint at the real reason for her loneliness, she bursts into flames. It’s the first taste of overcooked vampire barbeque we get, but there’s plenty more to come.
Next we’re introduced to Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), who works at a human farm. Vampires are in charge of this world and any humans left over are only good for providing blood. This provides for some scenes where we see naked men and women strapped into place in large industrial farms that feed an inhuman society. It’s almost a cool idea, but The Matrix thought of it first, and KFC is doing this in the real world with its “chickens” anyway.
We’re introduced to a Vampire society that seems much like our own except there are inexplicably more bats flying around. The masses drink blood in their coffee as they ride the subway to work, and chain smoke because they’re immortal and hell, they can get away with it.
It seems like this Vampire society should have been more awesome. With everyone having vastly improved strength and speed capabilities, you’d think there’d be more extreme sports – perhaps a variation of basketball with human heads replacing the ball, and replaced by spikes. The vampires could go up for a slam and squeeze the blood out like juicing a lemon.
Seriously, more could have been done with the Vampire society theme. There wasn’t even an easy laugh like having someone sit down to a bowl of Count Chocula for breakfast, or count things in the style of The Count from Sesame Street.
The vampires are running out of blood as the human population dwindles to extinction. Dalton works for a predictably evil corporation that is looking to solve that problem by creating a blood substitute. If they don’t find it fast, everyone will turn into a mindless succubus creature that act similar to fans of the Twighlight Saga.
One chance encounter with a succubus establishes a healthy vampire can degenerate to this putrid mutant in a matter of days. The promising action sequence disappoints when it transforms into a grotesque kitchen knife demonstration as Dalton’s G.I. Joe brother filets the creature and then decapitates it.
The gore scenes in this movie are so excessive that they are more comical than gross. Vampires instantaneously explode into a fluid burst of redness that resembles a Pizza Pops commercial.
It’s surprising just how much innards do explode out of these paper thin characters. Sam Neil plays the blood-sucking (literally and figuratively) executive who becomes the main villain. He is nothing but pure evil as he plots to turn his own daughter into a vampire, and then hide a cure from society so he can assure his company “repeat business.” All the while, he wears a power suit and drinks blood out of a wine glass.
But the worst is Willem Dafoe’s unfortunate attempt at a Southern accent as Elvis, a human with the secret that will save vampires from themselves. No, it’s not a deep friend peanut butter and banana sandwich. The audience must indulge embarrassing attempts at wit such as: “about as safe as bare-backin’ a $5 whore.”
The plot seems to progress through accidental coincidences. Dalton meets the human rebels because he’s distracted while driving, the cure is discovered by a botched suicide attempt, and an even-better cure is similarly stumbled upon. The real accident is that someone let this script make its way to a final cut.
My advice, if you do find yourself forced to watch this forgettable Vampire flick, entertain yourself by exclaiming in the style of The Count every time a vampire is gored to death.
“One! One, bloody vampire explosion!… Two! Two, bloody vampire explosions…”