The Kraken and the Half-Blood Prince. 3D or not 3D?

Rating: 4/10 (28 April 2010)

I have always been fascinated by legends and myths of ancient Greece the way they were retold from the ancient epic and lyric poems, and I could spend hours counting the liberties taken with the famous legends in the new action adventure Clash of the Titans (2010) but I will only mention few of them. Zeus, the king of gods did not appear seduce the mother of Perseus, the main character of the film, in the form of her husband, Acrisius. Acrisius was the father of Danae, who was predicted to be killed by her son. Frightened Acrisius imprisoned Danae in a bronze chamber open to the sky in the courtyard of his palace. Zeus entered the chamber in the form of golden rain, and from that union Perseus was born. After several generations, Zeus would disguise himself as a husband of another beautiful woman, Alcmene, resulting in birth of the greatest Greek hero, Hercules. The guardian angel of Perseus in the film, the beautiful woman named Io, was according the legend his fore-mother, from who the greatest heroes of Greece would descend. Io died long before the birth of Perseus, and simply could not accompany him in his journey. As a matter of fact, Perseus was on his quest for the head of Medusa Gorgona alone, and two his half-siblings had helped him, the gods Athena and Hermes. Perseus from the legend never was depicted as the rebel against Gods and the fighter for the human rights. The Legend of Perseus is so beautiful and poetic that it deserves to be filmed without deviation and strange changes. I never understood why every director and screenwriter who decided to make yet another adaptation of the well known legends should add some preposterous changes to them? One more thing - what with the title? The Titans, also known as the elder gods, were the children of Gaea, the Earth goddess and Uranus, the sky god. The Titans ruled the earth before the Olympians with Zeus as their leader overthrew them and banished them to Tartarus, a place deep beneath even the underworld, dark, sunless and gloomy. There are no titans in the movie and evidently, no clash of the Titans. And it's been noticed by many viewers that the Kraken was not even the monster from Greek mythology but from the Scandinavian. The huge dragon that was sent as the punishment for the queen Cassiopeia's vanity belonged to Poseidon and had no name. But even these liberties with the source material are not the main problem of the film. The 3D effects, the main reason why I went to see it in the theater, were of poor quality - images had double edges and were unclear. Only after return from the cinema, I found out that the movie was not filmed in 3D but converted after the filming was over. To make it 3D, was the rushed decision, and as the result, did not add to the watching experience but made it worse. The film boasts a lot of action scenes, fast and furious but they were shot by a shaky camera and primarily cause a headache. I personally liked only one action scene, the battle with the Gorgon Medusa. To give a monster so terrifying that a glimpse at her would turn any creature into stone, Natalia Vodyanova's face, one of the most beautiful and adored faces in the world was a cute idea. My advice - wait for the DVD but if you have to see it in the theater, save yourself the money and see the 2D version which I've heard is pretty decent visually. And do not say you have not been warned.