April 5, 2010

  • Clash of the Titans was....

    ...not as epic as I expected or wanted it to be. It was good.  But then....not so much.  I saw this one in 3D and was very excited about it.  But then I hear from more than one person how the movie was just "alright" and then I was like, "Ugh, but why?"  Is this not supposed to be a vastly superior movie than its predecessor, which was extremely overdo for a remake?  The original "Clash" was in dire need of a touch-up. Surely that's not possible to screw up.....right?  Eh. 

    But honestly, though, I don't really remember the original all that well.  I know I've seen it, and I know I likely loved it, but wow....my memory of the experience of it is quite shot.  I just don't remember the damn thing.  Only a few scenes and only a few characters is all that graces my brain's memories of it.  So guess what I'll be buying from Amazon now?  Hmmm....on second thought, I'll just download it off of YouTube. I heard the DVDs aren't that great in quality anyway, so might as well get it for free.  I saw a few scenes from the original on YouTube, though, just to reminisce what it looked like and I thought for sure it would be so easy to redo by the effects alone.

    • The effects, of course, were vastly improved.  As I said on a friend's blog, Pegasus kicked all sorts of ass.  The winged horse was as awesome as I expected him to be, though I wish he had more screen time.  His visual look is one that worked extremely well for me and when you think about it, we none of us have ever seen a modern Pegasus that looks convincing.  Even Tri-Star's cartoon-winged Pegasus, the one that would run from a distance and leap over the logo, had NOTHING on these modern ones.
    • The scorpions were of course great, but in the modern era where movies such as these are typically CGI heavy and we see them all the time, they got old kind fast.  I'm looking for newness, and it's gonna be hard for Hollywood to deliver that since we've seen it all before.  Or maybe it was the fact that I just saw Starship Troopers the other day so now it's like these huge scorpions are sorta of bleh now. I still appreciated them though, however, because after all, they were in the original.  But...BUT!!! Riding them all piggy-back style into the desert?  Now they're tame scorpions? Lameness.  Way to make some typically fearsome arachnids to be rendered impotent in their ferocity, movie remakers.  Thanks alot!
    • Hades' visuals were pretty neat. I liked the smokey effects.  Too bad I didn't get to see some other gods more in depth, like Poseidon. But yeah, okay....nothing else to add...
    • I actually LOVED the look of Olympus.  The palace on the mountain top was cool, but seeing the gods situated in their throne room as if they were walking along the sky of the earth was even cooler. I loved that effect.  Very "godlike." 
    • The Kraken was cool and very well-done.  Yeah, he was a bit like the bastard lovechild of the Cloverfield monster and Godzilla, but it still worked.  He was huge, huge, HUGE and it was pretty convincing that he was.  Unfortunately, he didn't wreak enough havoc to satisfy my appetite for the destruction a beast that size should be causing.  Way too underused like lots of other movie villains.  Darth Maul anyone?
    • Medusa. Oyyy....Medusa. What can I say about Medusa?  Is she supposed to be beautiful or ugly? It seems there are two version of her out there.  This current "Titans" seems to want to embrace her as being very beautiful.  Just snake hair and body.  But I don't know....I find the gross ugly version of her to be a little more interesting.  From what I learned from watching a few scenes on YouTube, she was the main magnet of a character in the original.  She had an impact in the older film.  She had an essential role. Everything led up to her presence.  She had the key to defeat the very monster that was a threat to mankind.  Not to mention, of course, her unmatched ability of turning men to stone.  If it was one thing that this new "Clash" needed to get right, at least in my opinion, it was Medusa.  I watched the old one's scene with my modern eyes and was like, "Yeah, look how fake she looks.  The new one will definitely look better. Still freaky, but way more real."  Um.  No. This assessment was not to be.  Not only was this new Medusa very NON-menacing, she was also quite....well....attractive? I was sorta looking forward to her creepy menace, but there was none of that to be found.  Her lair was a little too open, yes. I called it "her playground" when I saw it. But that was forgiveable.  Then I saw her face, and I'm like...."Drats." Her CG was quite bad.  Like VERY.  She was way too pretty.  Gone was the aura of mystery about her.  I didn't care at all for her laughing either.  It not only made her a little too human, but also a lot less scary, if she was already any bit of scary to begin with, which she wasn't.  To me, she was just like an overly proud, pretty, popular girl taunting those were "beneath" her, and that just strips away the tragedy of her story.  So all in all, it was just stupid.  I thought it would have been more effective just hearing her slither around with no silly laughing, just so she can be at least a LITTLE bit creepy.  But what I really, REALLY hated was her incredibly ridiculous fang face. It was awfully stupid and annoyingly cliche.  Not everything that's supposed to be threatening has to have freaking fake cartoon fangs growing out of their mouth.  We've seen it a dozen times in different movies, including cartoons, and to add that aspect to her was completely unnecessary and made her even more silly.  Now I loved the stone transformations, though.  Thank goodness for THAT aspect. But everything else?  It was just....not right. 

    But enough about the effects.  How about the plot?  Rushed. Way too rushed.  I feel like I wasn't given much of an opportunity to get to know or love the characters like....at all.  They were just useless extras to me, men who have no names, there only to make the numerous action scenes a little more interesting because they get to die some.  Was it like that in the original? I'm not sure.  Once I see it again, I'll be more certain of that.  And what about that beastly, ugly red man with the horns?  No, not Darth Maul. I know what you're thinking and it's not funny!  Nah, there's that creature with a tail, earrings, and two horns.  He was like some sort of hobgoblin prehistoric demon or something.  What about him?  Oh yeah, he's been reduced to some jacked up mutant man with anger issues.  He doesn't even seem intelligent.  He's just a....rabid crazy thing.  I can see that this wasn't supposed to be a remake per se, but in my opinion, if a movie's not supposed to be a remake, then why call it the same name?  If something's supposed to be a reimagining or an alternate version, then call it something else.  Otherwise, just call it a remake, then say you screwed it up. 

    This new "Clash" is a screwed up remake (from what I can tell so far....can't really say for sure until I watch the old one again), but as a reimagined, newer version, it was decent.  It was fun.  It was enjoyable.  And hello? Sam Worthington's hot.  But that's about it.  Sure, he's been playing the same sort of character in his handful of movies, but oh well.  He's got a sexy as all hell voice and as long as I get to listen to it, I'm all good.  The one thing this movie succeeded in doing was getting me to desperately want to see the original again.  For me not to remember one bloomin' thing, it just shows me that I haven't seen it since I was a kid, in the literal sense.  Hell, I'm downloading it now as I type, glancing at a few scenes and it just hit me:  WHERE THE HELL WAS CYBARUS THIS TIME AROUND?? I just KNEW there was something missing.  And that big vulture? I didn't even realize there was a big vulture in the older version.  What the hell was the significance of the big vulture?  I wanna know!  I can't wait to see the old one again just for the sake of picking out all the stuff that wasn't in the new version.

    Well anyway...I know this isn't really a review, but a spew, as much of my movie opinions tend to be.  But oh well.  It's my blog space and I'll type what I want to. :-p

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