Clash of the Titans

Found floating in the sea as a baby, Perseus has spent his life wondering who he is. When the gods inadvertently kill his adoptive family and condemn the people of Lagos to death Perseus learns he is a demigod, the lost son of Zeus. Perseus and warriors of Lagos set out to try and find the three witches so they can learn how to defeat Hades and strike back at the gods.

Clash of the Titans is a classic example of a film with a great trailer. However, the trailer does not live up to the film. This film is a remake of a weak but fun original, and I have to say that if you go into the theatre expecting anything other than stupid fun for two hours you will be quite disappointed.

To talk more about the tail wagging the dog, if you were a careful study of the trailer you may have noticed there was only one to two lines of dialogue in it, the rest was action…that was for a reason. This movie has some of the worst dialogue I’ve ever heard. It’s cool to hear Pete Postelwaith & Liam Neeson emote verbally, but the rest of the dialogue, no matter how sincerely delivered was laughable. My best example of this was when Perseus and the soldiers are about to enter Medusa’s lair and like a good leader Perseus gives his customary pep talk which ends with “now let’s go get this bitch”. I kid you not.

As if that weren’t enough, the actual plot of the film is weak as well. The reason there is only action in the trailer, is because the films plot really only works as a logline “the son of Zeus finds his destiny and encounters mythological creatures in the pursuit to kill Hades”, anything outside of that wears quite thin. It’s as if the screenplay was written by a first year film student with no experience, they were told to make a index cards, each with a seprate scene in the film listed on it, and then arranged into the chronology of the story – nothing is connected, we just move from A to B to C because that is how everything is laid out.

On top of this there is the obvious build up to a hopeful sequel at the end of the film where Zeus tells Perseus that this is his destiny, more trials will come, etc., etc. This is pandering for a franchise. In a franchise the films tend to get weaker as they go along and after seeing Clash of the Titans I cannot imagine what the second film in this franchise would look like – it would probably be better silent so I can just watch Sam Worthington fight for two hours.

As bad as I know Clash of the Titans is, I still have to say I was entertained by it. I can’t even say it aspired to B movie level, but it was fun. I enjoyed the action and as a fan of Sam Worthington I enjoyed the excuse to watch him do his thing for two hours. Plus there is the downright cool factor of Liam Neeson a Zeus. That man can continue to be cast in god roles like Zeus and Aslan and I am going to think he is perfect for them every time.

Clash of the Titans may be an excuse to thrown money around on action and special effects. But there is a silver lining – this will probably be remade again in another ten-twenty years so we’ll have another shot to get it right.

Director: Louis Leterrier
Perseus: Sam Worthington
Zeus: Liam Neeson
Hades: Ralph Finnes
Andromeda: Alexa Davalos
Io: Gemma Arterton

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

harry potter and hermione granger
Originally uploaded by mlvn.snmgl

Until The Half-Blood Prince came out The Goblet of Fire was my favorite film in the Harry Potter franchise.

As a story, The Goblet of Fire is my favorite in the series because it’s the absolute game-changer for the characters and wizzarding world. The last act bring back the villain that the entire world is terrified of, the villain that so many people deny the existence of because it’s easier than worrying he may come back someday and for the first time Harry fails.

In the prior three stories of Harry and Hogwarts our three friends always emerge victorious. In year one Harry, Ron & Hermione keep the sorcerer’s stone safe, year two they discover the chamber of secrets, save Ginny and unknowingly destroy the first horcrux. Year three might seem like Harry is defeated because he frees his godfather Sirius Black, but can’t clear his name and Wormtail gets away, but as Dumbledore so precisely points out at the end – the innocent man got free – Harry still won. The Goblet of Fire doesn’t have such an ending; Harry witnesses a friend die and unwillingly helps Voldemort be reborn. It’s a dark, surprising place and completely sets up the rest of the series and where it has to go.

As happy as I am that David Yates really made the Harry Potter franchise his own, I think Mike Newell did a fantastic job on his part of the series. If Newell hadn’t handled Goblet of Fire so well Yates would not have been able to take the series to the heights it’s at now.

Voldemort: The Boy-Who-Lived. How lies have fed your legend, Harry! Do you want to know what really happened thirteen years ago? Shall I divulge how I truly lost my powers? It was love. You see, when dear sweet Lily Potter gave her life for her only son, it provided him with the ultimate protection, I could not touch him. It was old magic, something I should have foreseen.

The Hurt Locker

William James is called in to be the head of an elite bomb squad in Iraq that only has about 30 days left in their rotation; Eldridge and Sandborn, the other two officers in his unit just want to play it safe and go home but James has other plans. He is an adrenaline junkie who loves the challenge bombs present him and doesn’t believe in “safe”. James is more at home in war than civilian life and this creates a huge conflict amongst he and the other men as he abruptly forces them into his version of the Iraq war.

In my opinion female directors have taken a huge blow lately as two films that were potentially great for us in 2008 both blew - Twilight & Punisher War Zone. Both were franchise films with cult followings and if executed well could have brought female directors to a very prominent light; instead the films were lackluster representations of the great female talent that is out there. That is why I thank God for Kathryn Bigelow & The Hurt Locker.

The Hurt Locker is one of the best and most psychologically intense war films I’ve ever seen. Bigelow infuses each bomb sequence with a tension befitting of the activity at hand; the bomb becomes almost a character in the scene infused with an evil all its own and James’ own personal puzzle. She also manages to make each of the men their own distinct and fully developed character, complete with a motivation all their own – this is something not normally seen in action films, but including this makes the film something different entirely.

I don’t know if Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker will be remembered come Academy Award time, but she should be. I hope that the momentum The Hurt Locker has been creating will carry forward for Bigelow and the rest of us female directors out there.

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer: Mark Boal
Staff Sgt. James: Jeremy Renner
Sgt. Sanborn: Anthony Mackie
Spec. Eldridge: Brian Geraghty
Contractor Leader: Ralph Fiennes
Col. Reed: David Morse
Connie James: Evangeline Lilly
Sgt. Thompson: Guy Pearce

Staff Sergeant James: There's enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I'm gonna die, I want to die comfortable.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Order of the Phoenix is by and far a dark chapter in Harry Potter’s life in and out of Hogwarts. While Harry has been forced into spending summer at home in the muggle world the atmosphere around him has changed and not just because Harry knows Voldemort is back, the literal climate hot, stormy and depressed. One afternoon Harry and Dudley race home to avoid a sudden storm and are attacked by dementors forcing Harry to use magic to keep them both alive, an activity forebidden to underage wizards outside of school. Harry is expelled from Hogwarts and only allowed back in after a full trial in which Dumbledore manages to throw in Harry’s favor. Once Harry gets back to school he finds a distant Dumbledore, a Professor who is attempting to take over Hogwarts for the Ministry and he faces the fact that he and Dumbledore are being berated in the media as the Ministry begins a full fledged propaganda campaign because they refuse to believe Voldemort is alive. This means that Voldemort and his Death Eaters are running rampant and the world’s only defense is a small crew of wizards lead by Dumbledore including Sirius Black and the Weasley’s who refuse to let Harry, Hermione and Ron help and Harry learns there is a connection between he and Voldemort that goes deeper than a scar.

I will admit that as a book and a film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix grew on me; it is one of the darkest chapters in the Potter series and it takes me awhile to respond to that. This is the film where Harry begins to believe he is alone in the world, literally gets tortured by a teacher and is forced to grow up faster than ever before. However, The Order of the Phoenix is the film that David Yates took ahold of and proved that he is the visionary match for Rowling’s writing; all of the elements of fantasy, reality, light and dark were perfectly blended and all of the ups, downs, joys and pains that were going on in the film were as real as they were to the characters.

In this film Dumbledore and Voldemort come face to face for the one and only time in the present, and an incredible action scene ensues. However, what I love about this scene is that it is used as so much more than an action scene, it actually developes the characters. It paints the triangle between Harry, Voldemort & Dumbledore and the fact that it is Harry’s choice to be good or evil, he has just as much choice as did Tom Riddle or Albus Dumbledore did. The scene also climaxes with the vindication of Harry and Dumbledore in the eyes of the Ministry and the public.

This film is also a turning point for harry and his group of friends. For the first time they make the choice to fight because no one else will, they make the choice to go the difficult thing even though they know it may mean death for them. This is the first film where the students make fully adult decisions and face evil knowingly, not because they are roped into it, or stumble upon it – they make the choice and face the darkness head on.

I do think that each time I watch The Order of the Phoenix it will grow on me. As compared to the other Potter films this is only about the third time I’ve watched this film and I was surprised at how much it entertained me because I mostly remember an impression of sadness the last time I watched it. I genuinely think that this film is part of why I was able to love The Half-Blood Prince as much as I did, but that is a blog for another time.

Director: David Yates
Writer: Michael Goldenberg
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Sirius Black: Gary Oldman
Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Delores Umbridge: Imelda Staunton
Snape: Alan Rickman
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Bellatrix Lestrange: Helena Bonham Carter
Voldemort: Ralph Finnes

Harry Potter: This connection between me and Voldemort... what if the reason for it is that I am becoming more like him? I just feel so angry, all the time. What if after everything that I've been through, something's gone wrong inside me? What if I'm becoming bad?
Sirius Black: I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.