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Clash of the Titans 2010 starts with Mythology 101: We learn that the Titans were powerful but their reigns were ended by their sons, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. Zeus got Hades to create a strong enough beast to kill off their parents, who then used his own flesh to make The Kraken. Zeus was king of the heavens, Poseidon the same for the sea, but Hades was tricked by Zeus into being the ruler of Hell. D’oh! Zeus then created man to worship the Gods, but man got restless and no longer trusted them. A boy was born at this time who would go on to change everything – Perseus, who grows into Sam Worthington.
With me so far? No? Well, it doesn’t really matter.
It’s a basic tale of revenge for Perseus for reasons that will become clear within the opening 10 minutes, and amongst that, while Zeus and Hades were at war for many years, the fact that mankind has destroyed Zeus’ statue – which was done by soldiers from Argos (cue titters of laughter) to declare war on the Gods, albeit not quite Saddam-style – means that he will allow Hades to create havoc and cause man to turn against each other and, eventually, have no-one but the Gods to turn to. Aside from that. we’ve got Andromeda, Medusa, The Kraken, a Pegasus and lots of other things and people where almost everyone’s name ends in “s”.
One person whose doesn’t is Andromeda, a young woman who is meant to be a hottie, but the woman they picked, Angel‘s Alexa Davalos, looked like she’d been chasing parked cars for the week. It also takes itself far too seriously and there’s just no humour in it. Plus, it seems to take forever for Perseus and his band of unmerry men and assorted oddballs to get to Medusa’s lair in the first place, the necessity for which will become clear when you watch it.
The dialogue is woeful. As the boy turns into our hero and he’s still on his parents’ fishing boat, his Dad says, “I know you have questions, son. I wish I had the answers.”, to which he replies, indicating that he’s talking about his parents, “I have everything I need, right here.” – I mean, pass the sick bag!
It does have some strong acting talent hamming it up, with names like Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, but there’s far too many big names in the film in order for one person to shine and, in any event, when they do appear they’re surrounded by so much CGI that any impact they could make is seriously impeded. There’s a couple of occasional slightly light moments from Liam Cunningham as Solon (bottom picture, with Mads Mikkelsen and Gemma Arteton), and there’s some decent acting from Vincent Regan as Andromeda’s father, Kepheus, who looks like a younger Christopher Plummer.
Overall, however, it’s an incredibly tedious film with very average CGI, except for that of Medusa and The Kraken. Just how can an ‘action’ film come across so dull?
As an amusing side-note, Hades threatens to wipe Argos off the face of the Earth… A shame he’s almost 40 years too late(!)
One thing I’d like to add before I finish: Given that Blu-ray can clearly 3D films, why does hardly any company bother? The biggest film of last year was Avatar and was not a film I particularly cared for, so was only going to bother if it came to Blu-ray in 3D, but it didn’t. Clash of the Titans is also a film that would look great in 3D so why are we being short-changed? Smells like just another excuse for big studios to squeeze more money out of the consumer with a further “Special Edition”(!)
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic theatrical ratio, the picture is sharp, detailed and colourful with no problems whatsoever. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
Audio-wise, you get a 5.1 DTS HD MA soundtrack, for which I got the 5.1 DTS version, which is faultless when it comes to getting across everything you’d expect from an action film with battles and explosions.
The extras begin with WB Maximum Movie Mode, one of those feature-length Blu-ray ‘making of’s which look at all aspects of the filming as it progressed and shows more behind-the-scenes moments than you can shake a stick at. It’s an essential for fans of the film and is rather like a visual commentary, rather than plain audio.
Focus Points (35:02) looks at many different aspects of the film in further detail, starting with Sam Worthington talking about taking on the role of Perseus, then moving on to Zeus, Hades, Calibos, the filming in Tenerife and Wales, the huge Scorpich creature, plus Medusa, the Kraken and the stunts in general.
Sam Worthington: An action hero for the ages (7:56) is a load of arse-kissing nonsense for the lead actor. “For the ages”? He’s only been heard of for a relatively short time so this is all very premature. He has no personality exuding from the screen for a start. Then comes an Alternate ending (5:23) which didn’t improve matters for me and, finally, a number of Deleted Scenes (18:10) are available if you want to prolong the tedium.
This is also one of those Blu-ray packs which contains a bonus DVD – handy to give to a friend to watch it if they don’t have Blu-ray, or you want to watch it in a different room – and a digital copy, which is less handy since these are usually of low-quality and so not really worth bothering with.
The menu is very dull – a static image of Sam Worthington and some incidental music – no clips of the film or anything. There are subtitles in English, Castilian Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian and Swedish. The chaptering is a bizarre odd number of 17, which isn’t enough. I work on the rule of thumb for approximately one every five minutes, ensuring one apiece for the opening and closing credits.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
2 10 10 5 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Cert: 
Running time: 106 minutes
Year: 2010
Cat no: 1000121783
Released: July 2010
Chapters: 17
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS 5.1 HD, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: DTS 5.1 HD: English only; DD 5.1: Castilian Spanish, French, German, Italian
Subtitles: English plus 11 languages
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Panavision)
Disc Format: BD25
Director: Louis Leterrier
Producers: Kevin De La Noy and Basil Iwanyk
Screenplay: Travis Beacham, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi
Music: Ramin Djawadi
Cast:
Perseus: Sam Worthington
Zeus: Liam Neeson
Hades: Ralph Fiennes
Calibos/Acrisius: Jason Flemyng
Io: Gemma Arterton
Andromeda: Alexa Davalos
Danae: Tine Stapelfeldt
Draco: Mads Mikkelsen
Apollo: Luke Evans
Athena: Izabella Miko
Solon: Liam Cunningham
Ixas: Hans Matheson
Ozal: Ashraf Barhom
Kucuk: Mouloud Achour
Sheikh Sulieman: Ian Whyte
Eusebios: Nicholas Hoult
Kepheus: Vincent Regan
Cassiopeia: Polly Walker
Aged Cassiopeia: Katherine Loeppky
Prokopion: Luke Treadaway
Spyros: Pete Postlethwaite
Marmara: Elizabeth McGovern
Tekla: Sinead Michael
Pemphredo: Ross Mullan
Enyo: Robin Berry
Deino: Graham Hughes
Phaedrus: Martin McCann
Belo: Rory McCann
Peshet: Kaya Scodelario
Hermes: Alexander Siddig
Ares: Tamer Hassan
Poseidon: Danny Huston
Ammon: William Houston
Hestia: Jane March
Artemis: Nathalie Cox
Aphrodite: Agyness Deyn
Medusa: Natalia Vodianova
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.