NOTE: The following post is not in the usual Hypothesis Spits format.
What follows below is a letter / reader review that I submitted to my favorite film site,
I have never submitted a reader review before, so that says A WHOLE LOT about the commentary you are about to read, haha.
Please enjoy, but take this warning seriously. Movies are not cheap.
Especially the “3-D ones”
There ARE some very minor spoilers to be found here – but you most likely wont find anything in this movie actually “surprising”, so I think that the word spoiler is a misnomer here. Don’t forget, this is another Hollywood “remake.” SMH…
READER REVIEW SUBMISSION BEGINS:
I have long wondered:
“When will a movie inspire me to compose the standard introduction of the AICN reader review?”
I have never been able to accurately predict a scenario when I would draft the infamous, “Hey Harry, Long time reader, first time submitting a review”
Man. Oh, Man.
The Gods work in mysterious ways.
Destiny, fate, tragic irony?..
Hey Harry,
Long time reader – First time submitting a review.
Disclaimer: This will NOT be a fully thought out or cleverly argued piece of writing…no – this is nothing but a stream of consciousness that I can only hope will serve as fair warning to any potential viewer out there.
I have no idea what I just watched.
I will keep this as brief as possible to avoid getting too rant-ish…well, on second thought fuck that.
I have not been this disappointed since I walked out of the IMAX theatre last summer after REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.
Louis Leterrier somehow managed to take the conventions of a Michael Bay movie and make them, dare I say worse?
The desert / scorpion encounter was staged so similarly to the Iraq Desert / Decepticon battle in TRANSFORMERS that I almost expected to see Tyrese Gibson somewhere in the shot.
I’m not a Classics/Mythology buff by any means, but this script is so horrible, so illogical, and so downright stupid that I’m certain it was written by the same team of rodents who terrorized Brendan Frasier in the “Furry Vengeance” trailer that played moments before the “Put 3-D Glasses on NOW” image displayed on the screen.
If you go see this movie – here’s what I suggest you do in order to keep your sanity:
Bring a notepad and a pen and keep a running tally of each time a character on the screen mentions the fact that Perseus is “Just a Man.”
I swear – I find it somewhat hard to believe a human wrote some of this dialogue:
Perseus’s advice before confronting Medusa
“Trust your senses, and don’t look this bitch in the eyes.”
The witches tell Perseus:
“There is a solution, but it’s impossible”
Moments after we see the only scene of sexuality in the entire film – Perseus is advised to
“Calm your Storm”
This might be the greatest euphemism for an erection I’ve ever heard in my life.
See, the thing is – I love campy, absurd, and ridiculous, but this “remake’s” tone is never authenticated.
It constantly flip flops between a faux-epic and ridiculous history lesson that (from my initial impression) completely bastardizes (no pun intended here…) the mythos of this genre.
It plays out as one bumbling and miserable chain of,
- Well, we have to do this first.
- [insert ridiculous history lesson here]
- OH NO
- [cue poorly animated Mythical character here]
- PERSEUS SAVED THE DAY! [insert BUT HES JUST A MAN]
- REPEAT UNTIL CREDITS
Isn’t it safe to assume that the group of heroes who trekked all the way to the underwold, who made it all the way to the River Styx…miiiight not need an introduction on who the Medusa is?
Did they really need instructions to look down at the ground?!
Let me be clear.
By NO means was I expecting to walk out of the theatre tonight screaming
“I can’t WAIT to spend 45 dollars to see this AGAIN”
But I fear that this film highlights the worst parts of America’s new obsession with 3-D technology.
COTT is the Yang to AVATAR’s Ying – and poor Sam Worthington is completely misused in this role.
I guess my biggest problem with COTT is that for 1.5 hours of the movie, the script keeps banging your head over and over again, reminding you that Perseus is “just a man”
It doesn’t take but one mention during the first 30 seconds of the film to understand the idea that Perseus refuses to accept his status as a Demi-God.
But of course, after everything is set in stone we get to watch Zeus’s shit eating grin (right before the credits roll no less), reminding us viewers just in case we forgot:
A MAN wouldn’t be able to ride Pegasus or wield a sword with the power to send Hades back to the underworld.
I wish I could do the same to this epically terrible film.
If you use this, call me Hypothesis Spits.
END OF READER REVIEW SUBMISSION
I Don’t Frequently Post Negative Reviews.
This Isn’t Criticism.
Consider This Fair Warning.
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