Word: greek
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...with many Greek tales, “Clash of the Titans” begins with the hubris of a great king. The king of the city-state of Argos (which looks remarkably similar to Minas Tirith of the “Lord of the Rings” films) decides to wage war on the gods by destroying a statue of Zeus and issuing a city-wide prayer strike. After he is convinced by a resentful Hades (Ralph Fiennes), Zeus (Liam Neeson), decked out in his fabulous glitter suit, orders the destruction of Argos and the massacre...
Storming the screen with plenty of muscle - and some steroids in the form of a last-minute 3-D version on about 1,500 screens - Clash of the Titans was No. 1 at the North American box office with $61.4 million, according to early studio estimates. The Greek-myth epic topped the previous best Easter weekend entry, 2006's Scary Movie 4, by about 50%. (Clash's $135 million budget was three times as high as SM4's.) But the movie earned about $10 million less than Fast and Furious, which opened on this (non-Easter) weekend last year...
...pocket. Yes, the retrofit adds nothing to Clash of the Titans, and may detract from the film's old-fashioned vigor, as audience's wait in vain for some big monsters-in-your-lap moment. (And it's rated PG-13 - unlike 300, its recent ancestor in the antique-Greek action genre - so the hacked-off-arm opportunities are also limited.) But at least this transfer to 3-D doesn't substantially darken the original image, as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland did. More important, you don't need glasses or a bank loan to enjoy Clash...
...movie proceeds without winks or nudges; it doesn't cue its viewers to easy laughs. As Worthington told an interviewer, "We take it serious so the audience doesn't have to take it too serious." The movie relies instead on the narrative twists and power of the old Greek myths; for, purely as tales to keep the faithful entertained, the notions of gods as jealous and deceitful as the humans they created, and a snake-woman whose gaze turns men to stone, are at least as edifying and entertaining as stories about the multiplying of loaves and fishes...
...smartly choreographed and shot by Leterrier's constantly prowling, soaring camera work, but aren't candidates for the CGI Monsters' Hall of Fame. In fact, when the Kraken shows up at the climax to claim Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), the creature looks less like Harryhausen's majestic creature from the Greek lagoon and more like Gamera, the killer turtle in a dozen Japanese B movies. There's also an odd, kinky kick to the sight of Andromeda strung up on a seaside platform like the most elegant bondage babe at Voyeur West Hollywood. But mostly this is strong, solid adventure, unsullied...