Random DVD Round-Up 2 - CLASH OF THE TITANS

I would imagine that you have to try pretty hard to take material that is literally mythic, and a stellar cast, and produce a movie as plodding, hokey and unconvincing as CLASH OF THE TITANS. Director Louis Leterrier (THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THE TRANSPORTER) delivers a flick in which the CGI looks shittier than Harryhausen stop-motion and every single actor looks as automated as the Kraken. Leterrier has supermodels cast as Greek godesses and the not unattractive Mads Mikkelsen swinging a sword. He has Liam Neeson cast as Zeus; Ralph Fiennes cast as Hades and throws bit parts away on actors with the heft of Pete Postlethwaite. Most of all, he has a story filled with characters that have captivated audiences since thousands of years before Christ was born. And with all this, he creates a quivering mess. Shame, shame, shame.

This is, I suspect, what happens when you have a big budget, big actors and a lot of CGI. There's a sort of spreadsheet calculation that the movie simply can't fail. And yet, and yet, where is the directorial vision to cut through the large cast of characters and shape the underlying story? Where is the unique style of an epic like 300? Where is the producer to pull up the director and tell him that the eighty foot scorpion-Kraken is laughable?

Long story short, this movie sucks. But for the sake of form (and I can't believe I'm doing this because didn't we all learn this in school?) here's the plot summary. Zeus, chief God on Mount Olympus is pissed off because the people of Argos have become so arrogant that they refuse to worship him. In a fit of pique he allows his brother Hades to terrify the Argosians by unleashing a big beastie called the Krakan. Hades tells Zeus that this will cause the men to love him again and beg for his help; really Hades just wants to cause panic and seize power himself. So, back in Argos, the King's daughter Andromeda is to be sacrificed to the Kraken unless the demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington - Aussie accent comical) can kill the Kraken first. He does this by cutting off the snake-addled head of Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) and using it is as a weapon. All this while Perseus has to come to terms with the fact that daddy was a god who forced himself upon mummy and then had his family killed. Perseus defeats the Kraken with the help of some buff Argossians (Mads Mikkelsen) and a hot chick who doesn't age (Gemma Arterton). And in an ending that defies legend with typical Hollywood producer arrogance, Perseus and Io have a nice romantic ending despite the fact she is pace legend basically his great grand-mother to the power of n.

Additional tags: Alexa Davalos, Elizabeth McGovern, Luke Treadaway, Travis Beacham, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Beverley Cross, Agyness Deyn, Natalia Vodianova, Ramin Djawadi, Peter Mezies Jr

CLASH OF THE TITANS was released in April 2010 and is available on DVD and on iTunes.

Ali D comments on THE INCREDIBLE HULK...

THE INCREDIBLE HULK - yet another disappointing summer blockbuster

I've been known to read a comic or two in my time but I never cared much for HULK. The story was just too thin: repressed scientist's arrogance backfires when his own gamma bomb explodes, irradiates him, turning him into his suppressed alter-ego - a seething, angry giant. I mean, that's pretty much it. Yes, there's a weak romance with fellow scientist Betty Ross, and yes, the Hulk is hunted down by her father General Ross, and yes there's an even more fucked up mutant enemy, The Abomination........But Hulk never had the psychological complexity of Batman or the sheer exuberant fun of Tony Stark.

Zak Penn and Ed Norton's script for the new HULK feature shoots itself in the foot by collapsing the whole origin story into the opening credits. What this means is that all we have left for the two hour run-time is the following.....

Bruce Banner hides out in Brazil.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in Culver City.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in New York City.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in Canada.........

This is not very interesting. It's especially not interesting because the ludicrously over-worked CGI Hulk looks nothing like Ed Norton. So, even though Norton gives a sympathetic turn as Banner, I didn't care what happened to him as Hulk. Contrast this with Peter Jackson's KING KONG. Thanks to deft motion capture and some lovely scenes between Kong and Ann Darrow I really cared when Kong was being attacked by the military.

But let's end on a positive note. This movie is not a complete failure. Tim Roth chews up the scenery and actually has some fun as Hulk's enemy, Emile Blonsky. Louis Leterrier puts in some stunning aerial photography of the Brazilian favelas and he certainly knows better than Jon Favreau how to direct an action scene. And the movie nicely sets us up for an AVENGERS movie, wherein the dull mediocrity of THE INCREDIBLE HULK will hopefully be leavened by the far from perfect but still much more entertaining spirit of IRON MAN.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK opens this weekend in the UK, the US, Australia, Greece, Hungary, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, Estonia, Finland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey. It opens next weekend in Egypt, Italy, Argentina, the Netehrlands, Iceland and Spain. It opens on June 26th in Belgium and Denmark; on July 3rd in Israel; on July 10th in Germany; on July 23rd in France and on August 1st in Japan.

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - TRANSPORTER

I'm so intrigued by the idea that Louis Leterrier would be given THE INCREDIBLE HULK to direct, that I've been going back and re-watching his previous work. What is there to suggest that he'll be able to handle the sensitive emotional content of the Hulk story, or be able to take on a strong-minded actor like Ed Norton?

A week or so ago I watched TRANSPORTER 2 and was entertained by the mindless slick car chases and combat scenes. Of course, the dialogue and emotional content were laughable but there was something endearing about the fact that the film-makers weren't even aiming for quality. At least they gave us a lot of funny one-liners as compensation.

TRANSPORTER is the lesser film. It was a cheap action film still looking for the hook that would seal its style. Jason Statham's cool-as-a-cucumber no-questions-asked driver isn't quite as hard, rule-oriented or laconic as in the sequel. His damsel in distress can barely speak English and is pure eye-candy, whereas in 2 they try to up the emotional anti by giving her a kid. So we've gone from a quick shag to quasi-fatherhood. The baddies are pretty two-dimensional in both flicks. You get a hint of homo-eroticism in 1 when Wall Street touches our hero's gloved hand. In 2, once again, its higher stakes, with lots of buff body-building.

Ultimately these movies have to be judged on how slick the action is. TRANSPORTER has some cool chase scenes in some very choice cars, and you get a bit of the computer-game like action sequences. But there's nothing as stylised nor as imaginative as the sequel.

So, TRANSPORTER makes for a decent enough action flick - perfect for DVD and pizza night. It hinted it, but hadn't crystallised the camp comic potential of the sequel, or indeed the proposed threequel. What's more, cool action aside, there's no hint of whether Leterrier will be able to pull off the emotional depth of a BATMAN BEGINS when he reimagines HULK this summer.

TRANSPORTER was originally released in 2002 and is widely available on DVD.

Random DVD round-up 3: TRANSPORTER 2

Jason Statham's career baffles me. Here he is in TRANSPORTER 2 reprising his role as Frank, the ex Special Forces tough guy who will drive anything anywhere, no questions asked. Frank has an American accent about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke's cockney in MARY POPPINS. And I guarantee that no studio would ever have put money on a skinny bald kid making it as an action hero. Still, you can't deny that Jason Statham is the world champion at spouting ridiculous dialogue and fronting absurd action sequences with a completely straight face. He never tries to wink at the camera and that alone prevents his movies descending from mindless fun into painful self-parody.

And let me reiterate: TRANSPORTER 2 is mindless. The plot is ridiculous; the emotional depth of the characters incredible; the action sequences lifted from a computer game. (Colombian drug-lords kidnap the cute kid of a millionaire DEA official that Frank happens to be chauffeuring at the time: They return the kid but not before unleashing a biological weapon.)

But for all that, the movie is fun, watchable and never dull. Writer Luc Besson may not be able to string a credible sentence together, but he knows how to make a satisfyingly "twisty" plot. And director Louis Laterrier (soon to be famous for THE INCREDIBLE HULK) also knows how to shoot a fast-paced, visually thrilling action sequence.

I also have to say that there is something wonderful about a movie as straightforwardly entertaining as TRANSPORTER 2. Critics may get sniffy, but what's wrong with a good old-fashioned action flick? I'm totally unsurprised that the movie took so much money, and look forward to the threequel, which will be directed by the brilliantly named Olivier Megaton.

TRANSPORTER 2 was released in 2005 and stomped on box office predictions to set a new record for Labor Day weekend. It is available on DVD.