High Marks for "Clash of the Titans"

Anyone in my age group is likely to recall the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans, which was campy but had Harry Hamlin running about in a teeny loincloth with thick hair, that determined strong jaw and looking quite fit.

This is much better.

The cast was excellent: Sam Worthinton, who was much more interesting in this role than the avatar roll; Ralph Fiennes as Hades; Liam Neeson as Zeus and a host of others. They all looked the part, where dressed right for everything and Sam looked preat as Perseus in those little Roman skirts...

There was one scene early on where Perseus with his family rounds a bend of an island in their fishing boat and looks up at the panoramic blue sky... where a boom is visible for the length of the scene, just hanging a little right of the center. Oops.

The movie was a good pace, mostly true to the original film and to mythology although where the blue-eyed tree-like creature came into it I'll never know. I can't place that creature at all. Calibos was all he should be, ugly and scarred and the tool of Hades. And he did spawn from his amputated left wrist drops of acidic blood that spawned humungous scorpions. The scorpions were very well done.

The music, by Ramin Djawadi, who also did the soundtrack to 2008's Iron Man, some of the best movie music it has been my pleasure to hear. The soundtrack to Clash of the Titans is definitely a must-have.

The thing that made this so enjoyable for me aside from the interest in seeing what they did with this movie was - believe it or not - earplugs. I had grabbed a couple of pairs and took one pair with me to this showing. I made the unbelievable mistake of seeing Avatar without earplugs and ended up keeping my fingers in my ears for most of it. I have no idea why, but the movie was played at megadecibels. It is really criminal that theatres do this. Someday theatres will get sued by someone who saw one movie after the next and then starts to lose their hearing at age 30. And I hate to say it but I did not miss so much as a whisper in that movie.

The other saving grace was the decision not to see it in 3D. I'd read that it is an engaging enough movie without having things pop out at you. I also felt completely miserable after making the monumental mistake of seeing Avatar in 3D and on the IMAX screen. When Clash of the Titans began, they started it by panning across the ocean. Ugh. In 3D that would have made my stomach unhappy. And the fighting was filmed in a way to make it seem a lot more frenetic, mostly by making the actors look rather jerky in their movements, which was not enjoyable in the regular format but would have been sickening in the 3D format.

Except for that, I really found this movie to be very enjoyable. The gods were great, the mortals were great, Perseus and his group were interesting, and the special effects were tremendous. I loved this movie. I personally found this to be much more worthwhile than Avatar was and now even less see what the fuss was about. Were the special effects in Avatar amazing? Yes. But the plot was so weak, it made a huge and negative impact on the movie. Clash of the Titans had everything, interesting plot, an engaging story and people and the amazing special effects. What more could you want?