A bonus brother edition for this piece of villainous torture awaits. Continue on if you dare.
It seemed, based off of friends, colleagues and public opinion, that people had come to a universal agreement: Clash of the Titans is terrible. However, I’d never seen it. My brother Chris has but couldn’t remember much of anything from it. Useless as usual. So I did what I usually do: I decided to give something a go and find out for myself.
Watching Clash of the Titans is not “giving something a go.” It’s like subjecting yourself to a terminal disease, a virus that destroys the cells of the eyes, ears and mind all in one fell swoop. It’s so egregious. Sam Worthington was good in Terminator Salvation and Avatar but I guess he wanted to get out of the acting gig or something because if there was a way to put a closed sign on your career, this is a pretty brutal way to do it.
Watch as Hollywooders I’ve become fond of join forces to give audiences the finger in this colossal clash of ineptitude and incompetence. Worthington lends his services to director Louis Leterrier, who not two weeks ago I commended for his work on the Transporter films and Now You See Me. Leterrier sent a clone to work in his stead or lost his mind with this dumpster. Don’t blink or you’ll miss one of the worst screenplays brought from print to picture. There is expositional dialogue coming from every cardinal direction and up and down, yet it’s not enough background information because there is still plenty of things left unstated, unexplained and forgotten like the audience had the memory retention of an infant. No laws of physics, human limitation, common sense, or logical input were packed for this voyage across a wasteland weighed by nonsense, fallacy and stupidity, a journey which can not be forgiven or overlooked because not even the action sequences are mediocre. Any standards you may have for film should be left at the door. This movie has one standard and one standard only: suckage.
Chris: Kristen Stewart’s clone is revealed in Alexa Davalos and her puzzled face while you watch Worthington yell excessively at nothing like a dumb lion. There are many scenes of him staring around as if the story is being made on the spot. Watch 900-year-old Grandpa Hades try to walk around with a broken back.
Tim: Among the many things that don’t make sense that I’d like to touch on: A bad guy’s blood turns into giant scorpions. That’s not the problem with this although it certainly could be in a different film. The problem with this scene is that said bad guy disappears in the middle of the desert but shows up next to Medusa’s temple later for plot convenience even though he can’t fly or summon a Pegasus.
Then there are these guys. What is that supposed to be? According to the film, it’s a non-human desert sorcerer known as a Djinn. However, the designers couldn’t seem to decide if they were trying to make Ents from Lord of the Rings or mummies from The Mummy. Minimal entertainment was to be had with this leader of the Djinn but it was to be short-lived because like the extremely few good things in this movie, he must die.
What is going on?! There is so much “I don’t know what is going on” happening in this film that there’s really no need to have a plot at all. You should just throw it out and throw a bunch of sporadic weird stuff that leaves us clueless. Oh wait, you did that.
Unnecessary scenes flood the running time and oh my gosh, this is so dumb.
Chris: This film is full of unnecessity. There are three witches looking through one eyeball! In another part, Perseus is given a scorpion shield and told it is very powerful, but we just watched them kill that scorpion by stabbing it in the back so, uhh? I felt there were more scenes of Worthington staring than fighting and that ticked me off.
Tim: Plenty of these unnecessary scenes are corny, overdone and do nothing to push this story forward. It drags it down like an anchor instead. Aside from the Djinn and actress Gemma Arterton, this film has nothing visually that attracts my attention. Medusa’s animation is to be expected, the Kraken looks far too much like a rancor from Star Wars and everything is just so bland and uncoordinated. Clearly, they didn’t have a drawing session when they decided to make the rancor, I mean uhh, the Kraken, that’s it. My mistake there.
The gods in Olympus don’t do anything, there’s no mentionable dialogue going on there and Liam Neeson is so underused considering how talented he is and how much of an effect he can have on a film if he’s just used the right way. If you make Liam Neeson look bad in a movie, your movie is pretty bad.
Chris: Neeson must have been drunk or high doing this role because he should have looked at this script and been like “uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?! HOW ABOUT NO!” *walks off set*
Tim: The music is often used in the wrong places as well, making it seem far too desperate. Ralph Fiennes as Hades is probably the most memorable role of the film but his lines, like everyone else’s, lack conviction and dynamics.
Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.
90-100 It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Jack Reacher, Godzilla, Secretariat)
80-89 It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Tears of the Sun, Edge of Tomorrow, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Young Guns, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2)
70-79 It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too.(Maleficent, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Transporter 2, Battle: Los Angeles, Skyfall)
60-69 It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (The Transporter, Speed, Godzilla(1998), The Incredible Hulk, Disaster Movie)
50-59 This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (The Starving Games, You’re Next, Thor, Full Metal Jacket, Alien Resurrection)
40-49 This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Billy Madison, A Haunted House, 300: Rise of an Empire, Cowboys and Aliens, Serendipity)
30-39 Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30′s ironically define the 1930′s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (Planet of the Apes, Stonados, Redemption, Pride and Prejudice, The Contract)
20-29 What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Thor: The Dark World, The Sum of All Fears)
0-19 Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (A Haunted House 2, Open Grave, Alien 3, Dark Fury, Midnight Cowboy)
My score for Clash of the Titans: 18.
More than its fair share of poor acting, script mishaps, plot holes, unedited scenes and nonsensical material, Clash of the Titans is a borefest for an action film and as a movie in general. Leterrier manages to destroy any fun that could be had with this. Even the ability to make fun of the disastrous contraption is ripped from us by the halfway point. To think, that all goes without mentioning this film features one of the worst third acts I’ve ever seen.
*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU DON’T WANT THE MOVIE SPOILED, STOP READING!!!
*SPOILER’S EDITION*
Why is the third act so terrible? I’m so glad you asked. To start with, Medusa. If you know anything about Greek mythology, you know Medusa was turned into a woman so ugly that anyone that looked upon her would turn into stone. This is fact. There are no exceptions. Well, this film decided to make exceptions because cinema. Similar to a “because I’m Batman” excuse, this film thought because it was cinema it had the right to do that. This is true. When you make your own movie, you’re allowed to make your own rules. This film decided to follow the mythology we all know, we look at Medusa, we die, blah, blah, blah. Once we’re actually taken to see Medusa, the film adds a rule in the middle of the movie. Apparently, Medusa can only kill humans because Sheik Suleiman, the leader of the Djinn, is captured by her and she stares at him to turn him into stone and it doesn’t work. Suleiman does not turn into stone and his eyes are wide open. In fact, he laughs in her face. Go to the 1:25 mark of this clip and see for yourself. So, apparently Medusa’s head does not work on everything after all which means retrieving her head to kill the mighty Kraken shouldn’t work either. Suleiman wasn’t using any spells or sorcery. He has his hands bound and he sits there and laughs in her face. The whole point of coming to the temple to get her head is pointless. However, this film than retracts that rule and decided that was only for that one instance. It works on everything but it didn’t work that one time. DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW SCREWED UP THAT IS???!!! That would be akin to making a movie about an everyday guy and having him jump off the Empire State Building and get up and start walking again without any blood loss or discernible injuries but then have a random thug shoot and kill him!!! Everyone would say “well, how come he didn’t die when he jumped off the Empire State Building” and the director’s only excuse would be this: because I said so ergo because cinema. That, my friends, aside from being a cardinal sin in the art of storytelling, is so idiotic words cannot describe it.
And so, Perseus runs to the city and saves the day from the giant mega beast Kraken in a record two minutes by showing him the head of Medusa. Surely that’s not the end though, right? I mean, they have to give us a decent fight scene to send us off, right? Oh, look, here’s Hades, here it is. That is what we all thought before we got this turd. In a mere 45 seconds, most of which is trash talk dialogue, Hades is gone. So, the mighty Kraken and Hades, the god of the underworld, are defeated in a total of a little over three minutes to conclude what is supposed to be the climax of the film but ends up being the exact opposite: a canyon of unending disappointment.
Chris: RAGE MODE – Do you enjoy watching people fight people? Me too! We must be friends. Do you enjoy watching giant monsters fight people? Hell yeah, me too! Then I have good news for you! SURPRISE. The great fight scene you expect to see with the monster and our great hero is all shown in the picture below. Isn’t it nice to see a giant fight in one gif? -_-
wordsofwistim 