People kick and scream all the time about the desire and need for original story ideas and mostly I am right alongside them, but we shouldn’t count out remakes, relaunches and re-imaginings of classic films. They do serve a grand purpose to the cinema audience (as well as the movie studios whom get twice or thrice the bang for their original buck). Some of these films are far enough back in the annals of film history to be forgotten or completely unheard of by today’s film-going audience. In cases like these, a remake can actually help drive these younger audiences, or those who just missed it the first time around, backwards into the video shelves and dusty pages of their Netflix accounts to dig up these original works. Sometimes the originals are brilliant classics that should be viewed by all film lovers, while others were great concepts but poorly executed due to the technological restraints of the time period. Some, including a handful of my favorites, are so bad they run full circle into being good. In those particular cases, remakes usually fail to capture the novelty and attempt for a more serious and quality version of the original, thereby almost guaranteeing box-office failure. If you need some recent proof, let’s take a glance at the new version of Clash of the Titans.
Clash of the Titans tells the epic tale of Perseus, born half man/half god and plunged into a quest to rally the mortals against the immortals and their control over the mortal world. Along the way he must find allies, battle incredible monsters, defy the will of the gods at every turn and decide what destiny he will write for himself.
Certain films get a good running start, but stumble in the home stretch and leave their audiences feeling unsatisfied in the end. Clash fails to even get its feet squarely underneath it. From the opening moments you get a sense of something out of place, something missing and I narrowed it down to this: quality. From front to back, every aspect of this mostly-animated adventure feels half-assed. For the points I gave for the thrilling CGI mega-monster, the Kraken, and smoke effects around Hades, I had to simultaneously remove points for terrible CGI-effects on the ferryman over the river Styx and the silly glowing around the remaining pantheon of gods. The same formula could also be used for the exciting scorpion fight scenes, which were incredibly reminiscent of the scorpion-type robot fight scene in Transformers 2, followed closely by the laughable costuming used on the mystical desert people, who just end up looking like weird tree folk. Clash never finds a balance between having crappy effects and going the novelty route or using the high-class CGI tools and attempting for action blockbuster status.
Moving away from the unreal monsters and onto the living, breathing actors unfortunately does not improve the situation. Briefly in the beginning I was thrilled to see Pete Postlethwaite, but he only gets a few brief moments on screen and even he couldn’t make the ridiculous dialogue sound palatable. Sam Worthington, starring as Perseus, continues his ascension of the blockbuster ladder (recently starring in Termination: Salvation and Avatar), but he is teetering on the edge of only being cast for his stone-cold glare and not for actual acting ability, which James Cameron was somehow able to access in and out of the ‘blue man’ suit. Liam Neeson, who some might argue was born to dictate orders from the clouds above, found his performance of Zeus pushed off the screen throughout by the more leering and sinister Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes. I think to really find the error here, we need to climb all the way to the top, director Louis Leterrier. I am a devout fan of his work on the first two action-filled chapters of the Transporter series, but their main reason for awesomeness is their sheer logic-avoiding car chases and tracer bullet addictions. We knew they were ludicrous going in and therefore could enjoy it, but Clash tried to be something more, something meaningful along with action-packed and it ended up failing at both.
PS: Just a small note here, but if anything could actually make this movie experience worse it was the terrible quality of picture and sound at the AMC Citywalk theaters. Usually I only have to deal with the crowd being slightly more rambunctious than those found at the Arclight or Landmark theaters, but this time the sound faltered a handful of times, the coloring wavered in and out and at one point I was fairly sure the picture was about to drop off altogether during a reel change. I’m not saying avoid the AMC Citywalk screens, but if you readers begin to see a pattern of crappy sound and picture quality up there, let me know. Maybe we can rally some effective change up there.
The End of the Page recommendation: Get some popcorn, soda or possibly your alcoholic beverage of choice and rent the original Clash of the Titans instead. Relish in the wonderment of Ray Harryhausen’s amazing animation of the time period and chuckle at seeing Harry Hamlin attempt to become a Greek hero. Plus, Bubo rules!
Posted 1 year, 9 months ago at 11:11 am. Add a comment
[Click on the poster above to go to Art.com and buy the poster]
(Just no words)
This was what we’ve all been waiting for. The weekend to end all others this summer, most likely the year, possibly even years to come. The moon shone down on theaters nationwide as dedicated fans of comic books and gritty action movies alike lined up for the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight, the second in the revamped Batman franchise headed by director Christopher Nolan. The hype was dynamic, nearing the rampant fervor last held by Matrix Revolutions, but this time the anticipation and buzz machine wasn’t met with disappointment and disdain. The Dark Knight lived up to every expectation and exceeded most others. Much more than a comic book film, this piece of history breaks many of the long held rules and traditions of movie making. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just say the sun doesn’t shine down on our heroes very much and without that the audience is not given what would be considered the Hollywood ending. Nolan put his best foot forward and also had to stomp it down on the fact he wasn’t going to lighten this up, make it more palatable to the mass public, because I think he felt they were ready and they deserved it. He set the tone in Batman Begins and he keeps that gritty calmness on the same tightrope with tense anticipation and sliding levels of psychosis. The continuing character development of Batman running right next to the introduction of the Joker and Harvey “Two Face” Dent shows that Nolan is just as good on the page as he is on the camera. Nothing is left to chance, nothing is left unexplained, and that leads to everyone leaving the theater fulfilled.
What words could I possibly write about Heath Ledger’s performance. I was recently talking to my friends after we saw the film about how sad I was. Not only because we will only get one more chance to see new and original performances from Ledger (when his finished footage is used in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), but also because this brilliant turn on the already once-made iconic role of the Joker will forever be marred by the events that followed it. There will forever be those people that will say we in the Hollywood community and beyond hail this role because of his death and not becuase of its sheer talent and genius. To those small and deluded voices I say this, Heath was an amazingly gifted actor and his interpretation of the Joker would have gone down in the record books no matter what happened to him afterwards and when the accolades and congratulation were lauded on him (an Oscar nomination is guaranteed, the win is probable) he would have accepted them with the same grace and humiliy he has shown so many other times before. He brought something new, something daring and something intentionally terrifying to this character. It’s incredibly unfair to compare his performance with that of Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s Batman because that film went in a totally different direction. Burton created a comic book world where Batman and his peers existed, whereas Nolan made a dramatic effect of creating our world, this day and time, which just happens to have Batman, and in turn those who will always turn up to fight against him. The final effect of all that work is a film with much more power, more substance and a raging river of emotions that rush over the audience.
Let’s not forget the other great roles in this film. Christian Bale brought even more to the Batman side of the equation this time, where we spent a lot of time seeing the person under the mask in the first film, now is our chance to see his psyche slide across that dangerously thin line between one personality and the other. One might use the term “the light and the dark”, but for the character of Bruce Wayne it is more approriate to think of it as “the dark and the pitch black”. Aaron Eckhart gives a little touch of his character from Thank You For Smoking and shows what happens when good people are pushed too far. Michael Caine brings a sense of class and stoic nature as always, showing a little more depth of the relationship between Alfred the loyal butler and his charge. Gary Oldman proves once more that he can be a skilled actor without showing how crazy he can be. Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and a cameo by Cillian Murphy round out the cast, all refusing to let the quality and level of the film dip below outstanding.
Overall, this is a near perfect film. Running at 2 and 1/2 hours, I honestly didn’t feel one minute was overdone or unnecessary. One of the great successes of this piece is on paper this shouldn’t work at all. The normal rules of storytelling are completely shattered, the traditions of Hollywood movies (especially those that cost $180 million to make) are left whining and sputtering in the past. Chistopher Nolan has just secured himself a place in the annals of movie history as a great storyteller, accomplished director and soon-to-be most profitable moviemaker of all time. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go immediately. I didn’t see it in the IMax first because I was afraid I might miss small details, but now that I have had the Arclight experience first, IMax…here I come for Round 2!
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Also, here’s a link to one of the better posters to come out of the marketing campaign. Many of them were sensational, like the “Why So Serious” series, but this one had a particular creepiness to it which resonated.
Posted 3 years, 6 months ago at 7:25 am. 3 comments
What do you mean you’re out of Chunky Monkey?!?!
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