Clash of the Titans

Last weekend I watched “Clash of the Titans” with a bunch of friends.  I was insisting on watching it in 2D, since it was widely known that 3D in the film was added in post-production and hence won’t be anything remotely similar to the real 3D, but my arguments weren’t convincing enough and we went to 3D cinema anyway.  Don’t make the same mistake.

As I expected it, 3D really sucked.  Do you remember those bulky CRT monitors that we used to have with our desktop computers, back when everyone wasn’t a happy laptop owner?  If you do remember them, then you probably remember the horrible experience when such a monitor was configured for a low refresh rate, say 60 Hz.  The images on such a monitor were flickering, there was no sharpness, and your eyes and had would start hurting pretty soon.  That’s very similar to the experience of the pseudo-3D.  Horrible experience in other words.  In fact, it was so horrible that we kept taking glasses on and off constantly.  One could watch this film totally without 3D glasses, but in certain places it was easier to have them on.

So, was pseudo-3D the only thing that spoiled my experience?  Nope. I felt that the movie was very shallow in pretty much every aspect – acting, story, special effects, drama, scale, and so on and so forth.  Just to give you some idea with a little spoiler – there wasn’t much of a clash in this film, and there were no titans.  About 40 seconds of screen time were given to a rather large creature, which many might confuse with a titan.  But when we are in Greek mythology, a word “titan” actually has a very particular meaning.  So, no titans.

And yet another something else that didn’t help my perception of this film was a fresh memory of “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” – another Greek mythology action movie that was released recently.  And as much as I didn’t want to watch “The Lightning Thief” it turned out to be quite a nice flick.  And it happened to be way better than the titans with no titans.

Overall, I’ll give the titans a 3 out of 5.  Skip it and you won’t miss much.  If you really want to see it though, make sure you watch it in 2D – save yourself some money and a headache.

P.S.: I only now realized that I forgot to review “The Lighning Thief”.  I will correct this shortly.

The Incredible Hulk

I needed a little focus switch, so I went to the cinema to see “The Incredible Hulk“.  I didn’t particularly liked the first part – “Hulk“, but there was nothing better to choose from anyway.

Not a lot of improvements I must say.  Special effects are pretty average.  There are a few sparks, but overall – too cheap and unrealistic.  It would have been a lot better to use photography for scenery and background objects rather than to render them.  Operator’s work was pretty average.  Scenes of Brazil towns were especially disappointing, since those were so reach with details, which were lost by operators and their equipment (shaky helicopter shots and such).  The story is still boring and way over dramatic.  It pushes for Forest Gump or something.  Edward Norton and Tim Roth were acting good, and that improved the filim a lot.  Liv Tyler tried as usual, but I am not a big fan of her.

Overall: 6 out of 10.

Transporter 2

I’ve been eager to see “Transporter 2” since I finished watching the first film. I got my dirty hands on it today. Finally!

Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Genres: Action, Crime, Thriller
Cast: Jason Statham, Alessandro Gassman, Amber Valletta, Kate Nauta, Matthew Modine, Jason Flemyng, Keith David, Hunter Clary, Shannon Briggs, François Berléand, Raymond Tong, George Kapetan, Jeff Chase, Gregg Weiner, Gregg Davis
IMDB raintg: 6.3
My rating: 8.5 [rate 8.5]

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Danny the Dog

I added “Danny the Dog” to my list of movies to watch because it was one of the most mentioned Jet Li movies. So I didn’t expect anything but a good action out of it when I pressed the playback button.

Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon, Vincent Regan, Dylan Brown, Tamer Hassan, Michael Jenn, Phyllida Law, Carole Ann Wilson, Michael Ian Lambert, Jaclyn Lee, Puthirith Chou, Tony Theng, Owen Lay
IMDB raintg: 7.2
My rating: 8.5 [rate 8.5]

Continue reading Danny the Dog