who, again, i liked. i really thought that this actor (name, sra, give him a name--sam worthington, that's the name) was pretty much the best thing about avatar. even sigourney weaver at her feistiest couldn't give fill her avatar character with logical personhood, but i thought sam worthington managed his avatar-guy as he managed his perseus: that is, well.
now, admittedly, worthington has somewhere between five and six lines in the entirety of clash of the titans, which, considering that he's playing the main character, is perhaps not a great screenwriting choice. and there are some moments where he just stands and stares at the ground, with his head sideways, like an extra from one flew over the cuckoo's nest (yeah, when are they remaking that? except as an action flick, probably one with jeremy statham as macmurphy, nurse ratchett played by the delectable and incredibly unsuitable-for-the-part kristen bell, and a soundtrack prominently featuring evanescence for the tender moments and andrew w.k. for the surprisingly appropriate accompaniment to the inevitable harbor explosion. i know it's bad, but i so enjoy making fun of stuff). but when worthington gets the chance to actually act, i feel like he does it well.
my friend pointed out that the captain dude, o he of the braided head and INCREDIBLY CONFUSING backstory, seems to be in a different movie. my friend made the point that clash of the titans would be clipping along, and then suddenly that dude would have a line, and the whole story would slow to a gentle glide, torquing itself around the mystery of why the heck he was there in the first place. really, him, and the whole band of soldiers that accompanied perseus--lecherous, erastes, and the older dude (these may not be their actual names)--in fact, all of the argosian soldiers' presence was pretty much a wash, both pacing and plotwise. same goes for the hunters (you know, those completely random brother characters who show up with crabs at the end of the movie?) that came out of, and then went back into, nowhere (my friend thinks that those actors got paid before the movie's creators realized that there was no use for them in the movie, and so they ended up included--my own theory is that those two characters are in fact prominently featured...in the director's cut).
and oh my heavenly creatures, the sheer amount of needless slow mo--it boggles the mind. i know the slow mo parts were supposed to be 3-d, because my friend tells me so, but...sheesh. the thing is that the graphics were really good. the plot, as much as was possible, sucked balls--i mean, it's, literally, a classic plot, and the base material is quite engaging, but what was done to it was super-not-great. making sense was not the movie's strong point. providing opportunities for graphics was its strong point, and, as far as this went, the script was extremely strong. clash of the titans was awesome, graphically. from various previews and billboards, i kind of thought that the visual aesthetic of the film was going to resemble that of battlefield earth, but aside from the men's hairstyles i was proved wrong. the graphics are wonderful. i don't say that that often--in part because i really don't know anything about graphics, but in part because i feel like a lot of cgi work is pretty derivative (see percy jackson entry--and note that i may have picked up feeling entitled to say these things from my oft-aforementioned friend, who is qualified to make said judgments). i mean, it wasn't like the clash of the titans cgi came out of no tradition whatsoever--giant things have taken up a screen to roar at us before the kraken did it--but clash of the titans's cgi was neat. it was cool. a professor of mine points out that coolness is intangible in a thing. it's hard to say what makes this cgi cool and other cgi derivative, but one can feel the difference. so the 3-d stuff really wasn't necessary. it drew attention away from the coolness of the effects and just made them look way overblown.
i also liked the king that hades was able to use as a pawn for reasons that the backstory did much to obscure--acrisius is his name, according to imdb. i liked how the movie took out the golden showers aspect of perseus' conception, and replaced it with this lightening-struck badass, who bites a chunk out of perseus' arm that later gets healed by one of the frosting men in a confusing proof of friendship. i liked the acrisius/hades relationship--it had a very the-emperor-and-anakin vibe, especially the, um, four seconds in heaven (?) scene, in which acrisius gains the power of the underworld by being fired up with hades-breath--or something. i also really liked the scene in which perseus is being taught to fight by the captain guy: it takes on a real step up 2 the streets vibe, especially when the soundtrack starts pointing out that after captain dude has shown what he's got, perseus takes up the beat and makes everyone see that he might be a humble fisherman, but he's got the moves. all that's really missing is opposition from some sort of high school principal; the sexual tension is definitely there.
finally, io is really really really hot.
the end.
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