clash of the titans

Something a little different for this week's rental - a Blu Ray.

Having recently set my PC up with its Blu Ray player, I thought I'd add a few Blu Rays to my rental list, and the first one that's turned up was Clash of the Titans. I figured action stuff would probably be a good use of high definition.

I knew Clash of the Titans was a remake of a film from the 1980s which involved Ray Harryhausen stop motion effects, but I must admit I didn't know it was direct remake with the same name. Id' sort of imagined that it was one of these more modern remakes where they're only inspired by or they use some bits and not others.

But actually it's pretty close to the original film, which is in itself basically an adaptation of the best bits of the Persius myth of ancient Greece.

If I'm totally honest I don't think I liked this film as I remember enjoying the original film. Now obviously it's a long time since I saw the original and I'm sure special effects wise, and despite a great affection for Harryhausen, this new one is much more visually stunning. But I dunno, this felt a little lifeless and some bits of it didn't really make a lot of sense.

Of course, those may be hangovers from the original film, but I think they were more to do with the tweaks made to this version. A good example of this is, with the Kraken due to come and destroy the city, how come all of the residents don't bugger off?

I mean, if you knew a huge, scary sea monster was going to come and flatten your city and kill everyone, wouldn't you leave? Now if there hadn't been much time or if some sort of guardians had been put around the city, this would have made more sense.

In the original film, the set up was slightly different - the Kraken was there to eat Andromeda or destroy the city. For this purpose she's tied to a rock way outside the city. From memory this was done by common consent with only Perseus trying to save her. So in other words, there's no need for them to run away, because they know Andromeda's sacrifice will protect the city.

In the new film, she's virtually kidnapped by a band of what are roughly religious fundamentalists who decide to sacrifice her to save the city basically at the last moment. She does go willingly, but she's tied up in the middle of the city. This also means the kraken makes its way into the midst of the city and half trashes it.

So, in other words, apparently everybody is hanging around just waiting to die.

And it's things like this that which took the edge of to me - more to do with problems with the internal logic and quality of the story telling than anything else.