Let me start by saying I’ve not seen the original Clash of the Titans from the 80′s. I would like to but have yet to find the time – therefore I figured I’d go ahead and review Clash of the Titans from 2010 as if the other never existed. So if everyone would like to pretend that the other didn’t exist too then we can proceed with this review of Greek Mythology told as if they had taken some pointers from the newest installation of God of War. Though I have to say I have more fun playing God of War 3 than I did watching this film. Kratos is just that much of a bad ass.

Sum It Up:

Clash of the Titans is actually a misleading title. It should be God Vs. Man or something like that because the titans aren’t even involved except for the subplot behind it all. See the Gods had to destroy the Titans in order to reign on high – and so they did and Zeus took over. Well when Zeus took over he needed someone to love and honor him etc. so he created man. The Gods’ immortality is fed by prayers and when the human civilization starts wising up and figuring out that they don’t need to honor the gods, that’s when shit hits the fan. The gods start getting pissy, and the humans look to someone who isn’t even human to save them. They shouldn’t have started the damn fight in the first place! Honestly, you think things are going to go well against gods?

the Good:

I have quite a few things I like about this movie let’s list them shall we?

1) Lots of very cool creatures done fairly well. It looked as if someone took some lessons from Del Toro (director of Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth) because some of them looked as if Del Toro had actually came up with them himself. The Sisters of Fate, the Kraken, even the “sand” people (no idea what they were called – who cares) all looked like they had literally been torn out of his sketchbook. Not that this is a bad thing, I loved seeing the detail and really great imagination that went behind them.

2) Some parts of the CG were awesome … and some were not. In particular, I’d have to say that the Pegasus looked extremely awesome. It takes quite a bit to add big wings to a horse and not have them look just like they are slapped on there. Not only that but they used a bunch of horses and had our hero riding a black one so that was a good idea to try and spice up the variety there.

3) Characters. There were plenty, but we were given enough to care for and enough that we didn’t care if they lived or died. We had our hero, his somewhat of a love interest, the hero’s guide, the ex-centric character and the pet. Then throw in a few bad guys and the father figure and you could basically say the movie was complete.

4) Action was prevalent if you couldn’t tell from the trailers. Once again, didn’t see the first film, but this one was pretty action packed and kept the pacing up the entire time. I can’t tell you how many action/adventure films falter because either the pacing is so royally screwed up or that the directing is just that bad. This film does not fall to that at all. (in my obvious uber opinion)From the time we find our hero to the time he defeats the big baddie the audience is treated to a grand scope of images and action that never really takes a back seat to any of the character or plot development.

5) Hades was awesome! I’m normally a fan of Liam Neeson but they didn’t give his character, the all powerful ZEUS anything to really play with. No, they gave Ralph (pronounced Ray I think) Fiennes the glory with his character. He’s dark, he has an awesome spooky voice over and his acting was pretty top notch for the character. If you go see this movie, make sure to pay attention to the screen when he’s on it.

the Bad:

Ok, so did you notice how Acting was not one of my things I liked about this movie? That’s because the acting sucked! Now I know this might hurt someone’s feelings (*cough* pat *cough*) but Sam Worthington was not a good choice for the star role. I never felt any pain or anguish from him, even after his family was killed. That and I’m sorry if I’m told all of a sudden that I’m a demi-god and not just a man, I think I would have plenty of questions and show a bit more feeling towards this new found information. Worthington seemed like a stone cold boring plate of nothingness in almost every emotional scene. Granted he has a good action face for fight scenes and stuff where he has to yell, but I promise we’ll never see him in a drama where he’ll have to shed a tear or anything. But it wasn’t only Worthington, oh no, Liam didn’t do a fine job, and neither did hardly any of the others. There were only 2 that I thought did a better than sub-par job with their roles. Everyone else could’ve been cast better.

Conclusion on acting = fire the casting director for next film.

Moving on, one-liners. Oh my can we say nothing but? Jeeze, when the movie practically starts off with “one day, someone’s going to have to make a stand, one day, someone’s gonna have to say enough…” I mean wow, really? That’s the best motivational speech we can come up with to charge the audience with a big battle cry? Nope – didn’t get me going and I doubt it gets any of you going too. There are a lot more in store for you too when you get to viewing this one.

So why is it that we’re told that this Kraken is such the big bad beast and then we only really get to see it on screen for a matter of about 2.5 minutes? Seriously, they build it up and up as basically the end of the world as we know it (oh good song there) and then he shows up and is literally spent in no time. I would’ve liked to had seen it tear up half of the city and eat some people first – hell give the thing a chance, it’s been under the water for thousands upon thousands of years, you didn’t even give him a chance to eat just one measly human? For shame.

Final Thought:

All in all though, I can honestly say I went into this movie with hardly any expectations. I mean you can basically tell from the trailer what you’re going to get. I didn’t expect the acting to be as bad as it was, but the movie’s action and really cool stuff to look at more than made up for it. It’s not going to win any Oscars and as of right now it’s not fairing well on Rotten Tomatoes, but I would suggest that if you like Greek Mythology, if you like God of War, or if you like Action/Adventure movies that you check  this out on the big screen. There are plenty of things that you can “oooh, and ahhhh” at while not coming away disappointed.

Rating: 7/10