Watched Clash of the Titans last week, in the non-3D-Version. I didn’t expect much going in, and I wasn’t disappointed. The movie tells the myths of Perseus, and is based on the 1981 movie of the same name. Except, it severely messes up the Greek mythology. In my eyes the worst offenders here were the idea of painting Hades as some sort of betrayed creature (Zeus did not betray him; he chose the underworld for himself) and the Kraken.
The Kraken, you say?
That’s right. Hades uses “the Kraken” to terrorize humankind. I mean – come on! Hades isn’t the god of the sea (that’s Poseidon), the Kraken is about as un-Greek as Godzilla.
There are less offensive points, too. Like making the Pegasus a brown/black horse. I actually had to laugh out a few times over these screwups, and my Greek mythology is decidedly rusty.
Another criticism I have are the characters. They’re not well developed and most of them are fairly annoying. Especially Perseus’ attitude gets on your nerves after a while.
Getting that out of the way, the movie was fairly entertaining. Some of the CGI shots were neat – I loved the Olymp’s “miniature Greece” that the Gods walk over, clouds swirling around their ankles. The big scorpion beasts were neat, too. Some of the scenes were obviously created in an effort to “wow” the audience of the 3D version, such as stingers and stuff that probably shoot out of the screen in 3D.
Yeah, I avoided the 3D version, since I don’t have depth perception anyway, and those glasses are just annoying. I also feared that the glasses would just discolor the movie. Unfortunately, the non-3D wasn’t exactly crisp. The image was blurry and stuttered in many locations: It looked like many places it wasn’t more than 10 frames per seconds. While the blurry image could have just been a badly adjusted projector, the “stutter” wasn’t. Quite honestly even a regular DVD would produce better results, nevermind the Blu-Rays I have recently come to appreciate. Maybe this does explain the recent problems of cinemas I heard talked about. If even a fairly standard Playstation3 + Full-HD TV combo can produce a better image than a cinema, then why go to the cinema? The ticket price for 2 persons (14 Euro total) is about what most of the cheaper BluRays cost, and no doubt cover many rentals.
I wouldn’t want to recommend Clash of the Titans. You can watch much better movies. Is it a terrible movie? No, there’s worse. Is it really worth-while? No, it’s not. But if someone else wants to see it, at least you won’t be bored in your seat for two hours. 2/5.
