If you must see Titans on the big screen, skip the 3-D upconvert and see it in 2-D.
Do you remember the Titans? No, not that football drama in the time of segregation. Clash of the Titans, the campy, 1981 fantasy spectacle with special effects from legendary SFX artist Ray Harryhausen. It was dismissed by critics, but probably holds special significance to those who are old enough to remember its arrival in theatres June of that year.
Having recently been reintroduced to the cult classic on Blu-ray, the critics weren’t far off in their assessment; it is a cheesy guilty pleasure through and through. Harry Hamlin convincing as a demigod? Get real. But, man, those effects. Today’s viewer has been spoiled by CGI overload. Ray Harryhausen was meticulous with his stop-motion effects. He had to be, as some of the sequences would take as long as two years to complete. His work on Titans may not be as strong as Jason and the Argonauts or The Golden Voyage of Sinbad – ‘60s-style effects just don’t fly in a post Star Wars Hollywood – but there’s a tinge of nostalgia at seeing how the action plays out.
Thirty years after Laurence Olivier hammed it up on screen in a toga as Zeus, Warner Bros. has “reimagined” the classic Greek tale of Perseus for a whole new audience. With an Avatar in the role of a demigod and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s mentor as the supreme Greek god, the B-movie of the ‘80s has had a complete overhaul. The wizardry of Harrhausen is gone, and in its place is more sophisticated (see computer-enhanced) special effects.
But while the effects are modern, they aren’t all that magnificent. If they were, then perhaps the film would have been made with 3D in mind. (The film was upconverted to 3D after the success of Avatar and the process was done in eight weeks. Compared to the eighteen months Walt Disney Studios spent converting Toy Story and Toy Story 2 from its original 2-D presentation so that it could be projected in 3D.) The rendering done in post is a complete joke. The color-timing is wrong – would it have killed the guys to brighten the picture so it wouldn’t appear like we’re watching a film with sunglasses on? Lifting my shades at various intervals the picture wasn’t that blurry, unlike some other 3D films I’ve seen in the past.
Louis Leterrier is a director who has come from the Luc Besson School of Action-Directing. After Unleashed (aka Danny the Dog) and Transporter 2, his graduate studies took him to helm a reboot of the Incredible Hulk comic-book character with The Incredible Hulk. Marginally better than its predecessor – simply titled Hulk – Leterrier looked to infuse that same level of excitement with this update to 1981’s Clash of the Titans.
The fantasy-adventure is a loose interpretation of the Greek myth, but more or less sticks to the story outline of the original with noticeable changes in how the story is told; where our hero, the half-god/half-mortal Perseus (Sam Worthington), rises to defy those who sit atop Mt. Olympus. At the start, the Greek gods have grown impatient with the human race and the hubris they have; no longer are the gods being worshiped or respected. To punish the existence of man, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) delivers an ultimatum to the citizens of Argos: sacrifice Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) or suffer the wrath of the monstrous Kraken. Perseus has his own ax to grind with Hades since the god mistakenly killed his adopted father (Pete Postehwaite) in lieu of delivering a climatic sea swell to a populace that desecrated a statue of Zeus. Perseus assembles a group to aid him in his journey to discover how to destroy the Kraken. If he doesn’t find a solution in ten days, the princess will fulfill her duty as sacrificial lamb.
For this new retelling, Perseus’s actions are fueled by revenge, not love. A romance brews, but it isn’t between Perseus and Princess Andromeda. What does remain intact are the ginormous scorpions, battling Medusa in the Isle of the Dead, and, of course, the Kraken. Fans of the ‘80s cult hit will mark out at a cameo appearance by Bubo, the mechanical owl that helped Perseus in his journey. Here his appearance is more of a passing reference. A shame, but when Sam Worthington is quoted as to “hating the owl,” you understand why it isn’t utilized.
As for the acting, don’t expect any prized performances. Hardly any dimension in the characters (and that’s even with the glasses on). Sam Worthington has no personality as Perseus. This Aussie’s got the look of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, but lacks that Aussie’s commanding presence. Ralph Fiennes, who has been a thorn in the side of Harry Potter as the evil Voldemort, and Liam Neeson sadly don’t elevate the movie all that much. Fiennes I can understand, he’s playing the god of the underworld after all. But Neeson is Zeus, almighty.
Clash of the Titans has nostalgic value, but it is not good cinema by any means. It is to fantasy what Independence Day is to science-fiction. Only Titans doesn’t have nearly the comic relief. It is mildly entertaining but not worth the exorbitant costs to see it in 3D.
Director(s): Louis Leterrier
Notable Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton, Alexa Davalos, Pete Postlethwaite, Elizabeth McGovern
Writer(s): Travis Beacham, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, based on the 1981 script by Beverley Cross
