We went to the movies...

Novel huh? We kept talking about how often we'd go to the movies this summer as the kid is not here and we can see grown up movies without sending her to my mom's house (she's a freak, I try to limit my kid's exposure). So far the count is at 1 and it wasn't really a movie on my short list. It was on the hubby's though and I didn't want to bother being picky with him (his hours changed at work, he's been kinda tired) so we went to see Clash of the Titans. Do you guys remember the old version way back in....1981? Good gawd that's old. My fav was Bubo (pictured above) and he had a short cameo in the new one. They pulled him out of a box and threw him back in, it was cute.

The rendition itself had a ton of changes, or as my husband put it they 'took liberties'. That sort of thing doesn't bother me at all as long as they make it work, which they did. I am all about being entertained at the movies, make up whatever story you want, take all the liberties in the world, just make it entertaining. I like that they were able to do a lot of much better special effects, ah the upside of modern technology! The actor playing Perseus, Sam Worthington, did a great job but his accent (they may or may not have been trying to hide it) kinda faded in and out lightly. Oddly I find it somewhat distracting. I love accents (like what American woman doesn't?) but I want it either there or not. The fading is annoying. Liam Neeson (EXCELLENT actor) played Zeus who, in this rendition, is not really a good guy.

I used to LOVE Greek Mythology. Starting when I was about 8 I had several books on it. Yes, I was that kid in elementary school who spent her recess in the library. And here you wondered what happened to that weirdo kid, here's your answer! I have, unfortunately, not kept up that particular fondness and have become woefully remiss in my study of Greek Mythos. So through the whole movie when they'd be describing a god or creature I couldn't for the life of me remember if that particular version is the one that is most often recounted or if they just made it that way to fit in the movie. It did, however, remind me of how very wrong the Greek gods were. The Greeks back in the day must have been some very strange people is all I have to say.

There was a part (if you remember the story) where they have to go to Medusa and cut off her head so they can use it to turn the Kracken to stone. They repeat the story of Medusa being a snake with snake hair whose eyes turn anything living to stone. OK, that's about on par with what everyone knows. They went into how she was cursed to that life though and I couldn't remember if it was on par with the common stories. As per this movie Posiden wanted her (as a mortal woman I'm guessing) but she didn't want to be with him so she ran to Athena. Athena didn't care that she wasn't interested in Posiden so he (and I love this phrase) took her on the floor at Athena's temple and then cursed her to a life as a snake with the hair and whatnot and no woman was allowed in her dwelling, only men. Now here is where I love what the Greeks came up with. So this chick didn't want to bang a god (supposedly one of the good guys they are supposed to worship?!), ran away to one of the other gods (another good guy?) who didn't care and so she was raped and punished forever? Yeah, love that style of justice! Makes me want to worship that awesome group of gods, how about you? Who comes up with this shit? I mean it's great when you can make movies about it but in real life? Could you imagine? Yeah, sign me up for that time period! Hell even the dark ages were better than that, give me the black plague any day!

So all in all, I totally recommend this movie. Does it have to be on big screen? No, it's not Transformers or anything that spectacular but it does have some great big screen fight scenes. They made it so that Andromeda (the sacrificial princess) was not Perseus' love interest. And it worked well because instead they gave him the love interest of an absolutely beautiful, just gorgeous actress (Gemma Arterton) playing Io, a woman who, again, refused to be seduced by a god, and was cursed to never age. Not the worst of curses, just as Medusa....