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Monday, October 8, 2012

Clash of the Titans (2010)

This remake is for those who thought the original Clash of the Titans was too faithful to the mythology. Not only does this movie depart further from the Greek myths than 1981 version it actually makes me wish they'd gone the route of Troy and had no gods at all as then this story would have made at least a little sense because in this movie version mortal man decides to declare war on the gods, and if the Greek pantheon did actually exist, the obvious question would be, "What happens on page two?

King Acrisius of Argos is worried about the prophecy that his daughter Danae's son will be the death of him so he locks her up, but Zeus turns into an image of Acrisus and sneaks in and knocks her up. The original myth has Zeus impregnate her as a "golden shower" and not a rip-off of Excalibur. Enraged he locks the wife and baby in a box and tosses her into the sea. He screams a nasty threat at Zeus and is promptly hit by a lightning bolt (about what one would expect) but he doesn't die he just gets horribly disfigured and hangs out in the swamp and becomes this movies Calibos. The box is picked up by a fisherman (Pete Postlethwaite) the baby is fine but sadly Danae is dead. The Fisherman raises young Perseus and spends most of his time bitching to his about how the gods are screwing the the local fishing.

The new king of Argos declares war on the gods, and during a toppling of a statue of Zeus the fisherman's family is killed during a retaliatory strike by Hades. Perseus of course survives and when he hears that Andromeda is going to be sacrificed to the Kraken he joins up on the expedition...nope, that's what you'd think would happen, but no this Perseus has abandonment issues and really hates the gods and really wants to kill Hades and even on numerous occasions refuse help from Zeus. Killing the Kraken will apparently weaken Hades and allow Perseus a shot at killing the god of the underworld. So basically saving Andromeda is just a nice bonus. She isn't even the films love interest as there is this immortal woman who has been watching over Perseus his whole life for some never explained reason.

Questions

Why do most Greeks have cornrow type hair styles and Perseus has a Marine crew cut?

What is the deal with those giant scorpions? We see they are created from the severed hand and blood of Calibos but later these wood Jinn are riding around on them like Oliphants.

You are declaring war on the gods, seriously?

Note: The 3D was pretty terrible, and at times the image doubled and it looked Zeus or Perseus had a twin standing directly behind them.

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