Friday, September 3, 2010

Clash of the Clash of the Titans

The original Clash of the Titans was Ray Harryhausen's last film that he did special effects for and like all of his movies the models look great and move smoothly.  The plot is he story of Perseus and his trek to stop the Kraken which original was not from Greek mythology but the name of a sea monster from Scandinavian myths. While it does stray a bit from Greek myths it does stay true for the most part.  The acting is ok, the lead is nothing special, but over all its a fun adventure flick with some good suspenseful parts such as the fight against Medusa.  A remake with updated effects came out this year and while it could have been good they went ahead and screwed up the Greek Mythology even more. Hades is in it and of course like the Disney animated film Hercules they have to make him evil.  Why just because the ruler of your gods underworld is evil (satan) do you always have to go and make Hades evil.  He was as evil as any other god. Which is to say not at all.  They're petty and selfish, but never really evil. Hades was the original emo.  He was content in staying in the underworld brooding.  In this Crash of the Titans they have Perseus lose his family because of the gods and he becomes pissed off and emo about it.   The effects are fine, nothing to write home about in this age of cgi blockbusters.  The action is ok, when the slow motion is used it evokes laughter.  Mostly if I wasn't into Greek mythology so much I would have maybe enjoyed it a bit more but instead its just another hohum action movie.  One funny thing to note is that Liam Neeson plays Zeus and Ralph Fiennes plays Hades reprising their rivalry from Schindler's list. Watching the original and then the remake back to back I definitely prefer the original.

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