If you enjoy this post, please retweet it. Other posts in this series can be accessed by clicking here.
POST #200!!!
Yesterday, I talked about the original Clash of the Titans and mentioned this one. Of course, that got me thinking. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the Clash of the Titans remake earned scores of 27% from the critics (who cares?) and 40% from the audience, but I’m one of the 40% that liked it.
To start, I’m an apologist for anything related to mythology, even when, as here, they take far too many liberties with the stories. I get that the needs of drama override fidelity to the stories. I also thought that, special effects aside, this movie actually outclassed the original with the scenes featuring the Stygian Witches and Charon. Other than some silly dialogue, I thought the scene with Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) was a match for the original, which is no small compliment, and this movie provided more of Medusa’s background.
As much as I like Rosamund Pike, I wish Alexa Davalos had returned for the sequel as Andromeda. I thought she was good here. Overall, if you look at the cast, it was as solid as a diamond, with some established actors, some making their first attempts at a blockbuster, and some just getting their starts. In addition to Ms. Vodianova and Ms. Davalos, you have Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Flemyng, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Danny Huston, Luke Evans, Liam Cunningham, Nicholas Hoult, Rory McCann, Alexander Siddig, and one of my all time favorite actors, Pete Postlethwaite (RIP). I think they spent plenty on the cast and not enough on the screenwriters to give the movie broad appeal.
There were definitely some annoying characters. The religious zealot who led the charge against royalty and the two brothers, Ozal and Kucuk, who had no business going on the quest, all irked me as much as they did the rest of you.
If I had to watch movies based in mythology all day, I would do so gladly. This is no exception … though even I wasn’t too fond of Wrath of the Titans (despite a better audience score). YMMV.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc (please retweet!)
Follow Natalia Vodianova @NataSupernova
Follow Mads Mikkelsen @theofficialmads
Follow Luke Evans @TheRealLukevans
Follow Liam Cunningham @liamcunningham1
Follow Nicholas Hoult @NicholasHoult
Play What You Want 
[…] eye, why is it making so much damn noise. Hell, the inferior 2010 remake (that I still liked and will discuss tomorrow) reasonably poked fun at […]
LikeLike
[…] Friday, I said I was an apologist for mythology movies, which makes that hard to square with my hatred of this movie. Let’s hammer that out a bit. […]
LikeLike
[…] tenday ago (nerd alert!), I published my 200th post, and four days later, I was having a Twitter conversation with my cousin, Kessel Junkie. I did some […]
LikeLike
[…] is the first time a comic book appealed to me. As readers of this blog (both of you) may remember, I’m an apologist for stories that reference mythology, and Norse mythology is my favorite set of stories. This comic […]
LikeLike
[…] mythology and the cultures that create it, so I’ll legitimately enjoy movies of that sort even if the rest of you don’t. But this is a documentary about a real find. Archaeologists found the tomb of Wahtye, an official […]
LikeLike
[…] than I should have. I’m a sucker for mythology, so I sometimes give modern dramatizations a little more credit than they deserve (though this is not absolute). This certainly applies here. The acting was rather sour at times, […]
LikeLike