The Philippine Online Chronicles

There are some things, that to my mind, once constituted a seal of awesomeness. If a movie had these things, then I was bound to enjoy them. Among this list are ninjas, pirates, dudes dual-wielding pistols shooting them in mid-air, massive battles with hordes charging each other, dwarves with axes, a guy with a whip and a fedora, fast-paced sword battles, slow-mo spinning roundhouse kicks, and a Star Wars reference. Of course, in recent years many of these things have been removed from the list because of a lot of bad movies’ misappropriation of them. And it only took one bad ninja movie to put the once always awesome ninjas into question.

Being a fan of mythology (as all geeks are in some way or other) I also thoroughly enjoyed Greek mythology and for a time included them on the list. And though Troy was dismal in its interpretation of the story of the Iliad, I had hopes that somewhere along the way Hollywood could get it right. It did, after all, come up with the fun to watch and memorable in its own way original of Clash of the Titans. And with the great trailers for this movie which promised an action-packed feature and a kraken (another thing that falls in the list of awesomeness; its awesomeness was already in question though, as it appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean, a film series that put a number of things on the list into question, Keira Knightley in a corset being one of the few things that retains its place on the list despite her appearance in the films) I was hopeful that the revamped, CG-driven Clash of the Titans would be an action-packed and enjoyable ride.

If an action-packed enjoyable ride is cruising down the highway with the top-down in a Maserati, Clash of the Titans is bumping along EDSA, falling in and out of potholes while lurching through the traffic of pre-election road reconstruction in an Owner-type jeepney.

The movie begins promising, with a beautifully executed prologue. We are told the story of the fall of the Titans (don’t let the title fool you there are no titans clashing here) and the rise of the gods, through mesmerizing visuals outlined in constellations. We move smoothly from one constellation to the next as if we were being told through a picture book a massive story. It’s a good way to introduce an audience that the movie assumes to be (and is probably right in that assumption) ignorant of Greek mythology. The movie makes the assumption because it is geared not towards people who know anything of the Greek myths, but rather to people who just want to see a massive spectacle. It seems clear also that after this bit of exposition, the movie is ready to chuck all the rest of Greek myth out the window, taking only what it feels might be interesting to a viewer more interested in bloodshed.

It’s a wonder then, that with a film so concerned with hitting the beats of violence and spectacle, that Clash of the Titans doesn’t do its action any better. If you were awed by the action scenes in the trailer, well, that’s pretty much it. In following the journey of Perseus, as he tries to save Argos from the wrath of the gods, we are given some minor but rather unimpressive hand-to-hand set-pieces with a deformed Jason Flemyng, which are followed by some massive but unimpressive spectacle action scenes with giant scorpions. And so it goes.

What bothered me most was the writing. The lines were terrible. After a great opening exposition on myth, it doesn’t bother any other visual tricks to make later explanations any more interesting. What’s worse is that so many scenes feel like they were borrowed from other films, and there is a rather disturbing undercurrent of homo-eroticism here that probably wasn’t intended, considering that the attempt is to draw the action-testosterone crowd.

Further problematic is the movie’s logic. Now I know that this film is fantastic, that it is based on myths and thus doesn’t operate on the level of realism. Ready to give the film all that, I still ask that the film adhere to its own internal logic. Even if it doesn’t work within the logic of our world, it has to adhere to the logic of its own. In this sense, the thinking viewer cannot accept most of the things that happen.

Its gods are petty and childish and want to be loved. And thus humanity declares war against the gods. How humans are to fight, on a literal level, beings that can hurl lightning bolts at them, as well as all other kind of calamities, I don’t know. But the humans are at war with the gods.

Humans, warring with the gods, with swords and spears and shields, don’t really do too much damage. One has to consider the military strategy involved when waging war on an enemy. According to the film, the gods feed on human worship. So, Greek military leader dudes, a direct siege on Olympus, or going out and fighting them doesn’t really work, especially if Hades can just materialize from out of nowhere in your big banquet room when you’re having a party after you earned a “victory” by toppling a statue of Zeus. How losing a troop of men so that you could down a statue doesn’t really make sense to me, and within the logic of the film it doesn’t make much sense either.

But this is how the movie progresses. Things don’t make sense, but we chug from one point to another, because we know that’s where we’re supposed to go. We are supposed to, at a certain point, watch Perseus chop off Medusa’s head, ride a pegasus, and take out the kraken. And the movie seems more interested in bombarding us with spectacle than actually telling an interesting story of how these things are done.

It decides to throw in some comic relief, a rather ill-advised love story sub-plot, and a lot of hammy acting. I was thinking that this might have a seal of quality because of heavy-hitters Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (come on, last movie these two were in together was Schindler’s List!) and great character actor Pete Postlethwaite. No go there as most of the acting (or lack thereof) is taken by Sam Worthington scowling and saying that he is a man (and more of that homoerotic subtext can be found in those little exchanges).

Clash of the Titans asks that you don’t really think too much. And this is a shame, as its source material is great. It only keeps that from the source material that might be corrupted to work as flashy action sequence and then makes the rest up along the way without much thought. The movie might have been redeemable if its action was impressive, but even there it fails. Lacking logic or the pizzazz to make us overlook it, Clash of the TItans is just, sadly, a disappointment.