THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Louis Letterier. Starring Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, Gemma Arterton, Danny Huston, Mads Mikkelson. Action, USA, 105 min.

If anything is going to ruin the current 3D craze, it’s movies like director Louis Leterrier’s Greek myth retread. Because frankly the 3D looks about as wobbly and disembodied as Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion special effects in the 1981 fantasy from which it takes its title.

Warner Bros decision to put their shot flat epic adventure in the 3D format has done it no favours at all except to the financial bottom line thanks to the additional charge for the glasses. And what a con that all is too – even you take your own glasses along they still charge you. Soon the public is going to cotton on that shoving $5 million at a Korean studio to ‘Viewmaster’ up a second rate B movie is only being done to add on a whopping third to the box-office gross. It has nothing to do with any artistic quality. Shoot them in 3D and I have no problem. Make them into the equivalent of pop-up books like CLASH OF THE TITANS and I do. Especially when the storyline, energy and direction are as lame as the very dodgy looking 3D. So here AVATAR star Sam Worthington plays Perseus, the half-son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), who volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and rescue Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), the Princess of Argos, when his human family are murdered by the King of the Underworld. His quest means battling giant scorpions, defeating the snake-haired Medusa, flying the winged horse Pegasus, fighting Harpies and taking on the ultimate Kraken monster. Argos is a dangerous name to mention in context as most of this CGI-based epic looks like it came from their bargain basement. Hades is the personification of a Rorsach ink blot test most of the time, while Liam Neeson’s permanent shine is pure Clairol. Because he’s worth it I suppose. Don’t get me started on Gemma Arterton playing the enigmatic and ageless Io, future Perseus love interest. She’s the Greek chorus character, always there to advise, instruct, and mostly annoy the audience. Best performance comes from Mads Mikkelson as warrior Draco who encourages the defiant Perseus to make use of his Olympian abilities. That’s probably because he was well versed in the sand-and-sandal mindset just having completed VALHALLA RISING. Best laugh in the movie is for Harryhausen buffs only – a copy of his mechanical Bubo owl being thrown away as not relevant to this Perseus quest. But give me any Italian Hercules, Samson or Maciste rip-off over these over-blown and fake adventures that skirt camp at best and are too frantically edited at worst so you can’t really take in what’s going on anyway.

At least you got a good slave girl dance routine in those ones. See this slapdash CLASH in 2D for the best effect, and you’ll save money.

Alan Jones

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