When I saw the trailer for Clash of the Titans way back before the Christmas season I kind of scratched my head. To me it felt like this film belonged smack dab in the middle of the July. As I looked at Warner Brother’s line up for the summer I saw no tent pole pictures lined up. One might argue that Sex in the City 2 or even the reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street could be considered flagships for WBs this summer. They’ll both do well at the box office but they won’t see Harry Potter type numbers. I thought it possible for Titans to have a box office that could comparable though. So I ask, why did it come out now?
Titans just wasn’t that good a film. It had great set pieces; a good concept of story and some very talented actors but the film never came together for me. It was entertaining but I saw it at 2pm today and I’m already starting to forget it. Usually when this happens I can carry some things away from the experience like the effects of the film but Titans really disappointed me in this area. If you’re going to have a big tent pole film than you’re going to need world-class special effects. But wait! Wasn’t this film in 3-D? Doesn’t that mean it was going to be another all-immersing experience like Avatar? Not in the least.
About four months ago Warner Brother announced that Titans was going to be retrofitted with 3-D. This picture was originally supposed to play in theaters as a 2-D film. After Avatar exploded though several studios decided to go back and convert some of their bigger films to 3-D in hopes that they could grab some of the potential box office that Cameron’s film tapped into. The only difference was that Avatar was filmed in native 3-D. Before I saw Titans I didn’t really have an opinion about the 3-D conversion process. After I saw Titans I pretty much decided that the studios should try and stay away from this whole 3-D retrofitting idea. In Titans it just felt like a gimmick and actually took away from my experience overall.
I mentioned earlier that this film had some great talent in it. Liam Nesson, Ralph Fiennes and the very talented Gemma Arterton all turned in decent performances with a so so script. Notice though that I left out the Sam Worthington. Does anyone else feel like Hollywood has been trying to turn this actor into the next Arnold Schwarzenegger? He’s been in several major films in the last two years but this was the first picture where he was the main attraction. Unlike Arnold I don’t think Sam has the charisma needed to be a leading man for much longer. He isn’t a bad actor he just doesn’t have what it takes to be the heart of a film. I kept waiting for him to give me something other than dark and brooding through out this film. Normally I wouldn’t blame an actor for his performance because I believe the director is ultimately responsible for that. When I think about it though the only time I’ve seen Worthington give the audience something other than dark and brooding was when he was a Na’vi in Avatar. The animators get all the credit for that. So I'm starting to think that Worthington is just a one trick pony. I know that sounds harsh. I just don't want another Keanu Reeves loosed upon the world.
I asked a question earlier about why Titans came out now instead of later this summer. After I saw this film and experienced it’s flaws I got my answer. I’m pretty sure that Warner Brothers knew this film just didn’t have what it would take to stand out this summer. So because of this they decided to make it 3-D and gave it a release date where it wouldn’t have very much competition. It turns out that it wasn’t bad a move. It made 68 million last weekend and broke all the records for the Easter holiday.
Until next time I’ll be getting ready to experience the awesomeness of Date Night with Tina and Steve.
The Pretentious Filmmaker.
0 comments:
Post a Comment