Short Take: "John Carter" and "Wrath of the Titans".

If you thought Clash of the Titans was forgettable, Wrath of the Titans seems to have been made exclusively to steals its title as most forgettable movie ever. This time around Zeus (Liam Neeson) recruits his stubborn son Perseus (Sam Worthington) to save the world from his evil half-brother Ares (Edgar Ramírez) who has formed an alliance with Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to kill the gods and unleash Cronos from his underworld prison. As is the norm with movies featuring villains that want to destroy the planet, nobody ever really specifies where the villains would move to after the apocalypse, but who cares because you know Perseus will indeed save the day.

The problem with Sam Worthington embodying a world savior isn't really that he's extremely flat (which he undeniably is despite the 3D effects) but that he makes everyone around him become just as bland. Watch him literally suck the life out of Rosamund Pike, who tries as she may, fails to to make her warrior queen Andromeda remotely interesting. Worthington only comes off better when he's next to the obnoxious Toby Kebbell who plays Agenor, son of Neptune. 

Watching the way in which director Jonathan Liebesman cheapens the concept of Greek mythology, you can't help but wander in your head and wonder why has Hollywood made such a hard effort to uglify everything? When compared to the way movies were made in the past, in which legendary actors played supporting roles (everyone from Brando to Olivier) and Greeks were always spotless, you have to wonder if the filmmakers behind this really think that watching Perseus dirty will make any difference and invite us to identify with him.

Everyone in this movie is either dirty or looks smelly, which not only fails to humanize their adventure, it's also preposterous to be watching in 3D. The visual effects in this movie are also so unimaginative that you wish they would've just stuck to voiceovers to describe what was going on. Lucky for you, by the time the film is over you probably will have already forgotten you saw it, which might be the only truly divine intervention that occurs here.

It seems that unless your name is James Cameron, you should be forbidden from trying to emulate the wow factor that George Lucas introduced to the space-fantasy genre with Star Wars. Why? Because most filmmakers lack the guts to go all through in their visions of new worlds and instead of imposing a brand new set of rules, they adhere strictly to previous visual references. Reason why everything in John Carter seems to have been done, and much better, in other movies.
Taylor Kitsch stars as the title hero, a US Civil War vet who accidentally gets transported to Mars where as a Messiah he helps solve various crises, including toning down the violence among a group of four-armed aliens who regard him as a sort of Spartacus figure and getting involved in a civil war between humanoids. Of course he ends up falling for a sexy princess (Lynn Collins) who makes him wonder if home is where the heart is and considering that the film's original title was John Carter of Mars you kinda know where this one's headed to.
Directed by Andrew Stanton of WALL-E and Finding Nemo fame, it's rather surprising that the film feels so lacking in imagination. Every scene is either a blatant ripoff or an "homage" to movies like Gladiator, Avatar, Star Wars etc. and there's obviously nothing wrong with showing off your ability to stylishly reference other works (Tarantino has forged an entire career out of said gimmick) the problem is when you're excessively reverential or, eek, just plain dull.
Despite a superb star turn by Kitsch, who seriously does more than show off his impeccable body by giving Carter a soulful desperado vibe, the movie comes off as taking itself too seriously. By the time the characters are done talking about Martian myths, social issues and backstabbing, you have pretty much lost all interest in the fact that the movie promised you Indiana Jones like treats.
You can practically see Stanton's sweat drop down his forehead as he composed every frame carefully trying to show off his skills as a visual artist, yet the creatures, costumes and design in the movie feel lacking. The color palettes are arid and fail to arrest your senses. Watching John Carter feels like traversing a desert, which ought to mean big business for theater concessionary stands but just makes the audience wish they'd just get to the oasis and be done with it.

Grades
Wrath of the Titans *
John Carter **

Unknown *

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Cast: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones

Aidan Quinn, Frank Langella, Bruno Ganz

Unknown has all the makings for a campy, exciting, popcorn thriller; there's amnesia, femme fatales, exotically frigid locations, female cab drivers and Bruno Ganz as a kooky Stasi agent.

However, it fails to deliver cheesy, or any other kind, of thrills because it takes itself too seriously.

Liam Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a renowned scientist who goes to Berlin with his wife (Jones) to attend a biotechnology summit. After a mishap at the airport and an accident that sends him to the hospital he wakes up to realize nobody knows who he is and worse than that, somebody else seems to have stolen his life.

His wife is still in Berlin with her own version of Dr. Harris (Quinn) and neither of them have any recollection of who this man who claims to be the "real Dr. Harris" can be.

Devastated he teams up with the cab driver (Kruger) who remembers him and sets out to discover the mystery behind these strange events.

Shot with almost too much precision by Collet-Serra, the film becomes a self important attempt at delivering a serious thriller. Yet it seems that the director is completely unaware that the screenplay includes secret plots to assassinate royals and Nazi inspired conspiracy theories.

Not that you can't combine both and make them into something superb (right?) but the director's take and the story never seem to be on the same page.

Neeson sulks beautifully of course and his rugged, worried face makes once again for an unlikely perfect action hero. You can't help but feel that he would be more at home in a Hitchcockian throwback, instead of this chaos.

His scenes with Jones have a specially seductive, almost tragic tone. As he remembers life with his wife, you see traces of Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, with Jones being the ultimate ice queen.

However the director cheapens this mood by making the flashbacks be recollections of shower sex and muffled moaning against a glass door...

Because Neeson is so reliably good, even his worst scenes have a certain serenity to them. The whole cast however seems to be playing out different movies. Kruger looks completely uninterested, Langella is reliably creepy and Ganz gives the movie just the right tone of cheesiness needed for audiences to relax.

The action sequences are over indulgent, sloppy and filled with plot holes. Sure, this may be a surreal plot, but even fantasy should be grounded on a version of the truth.

Unknown's main problem is that it never figures out what kind of movie it wants to be.

The A-Team *1/2

Director: Joe Carnahan
Cast: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson
Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Brian Bloom
Gerald McRaney, Jon Hamm

There is nothing inherently evil about The A-Team besides the fact that it's so utterly disposable.
For almost two hours we are showered with incoherent action sequences, really bad writing, more of that flashy-leading-to-nowhere editing and a sad concept of what entertainment should be about.
Based on the 80's TV show, the plot follows the original premise as in how a group of clandestine army combat unit is framed for a crime they didn't commit, become federal fugitives and seek to clear out their name.
Nothing much about what the A-Team does makes much sense; they fly tanks, then drive those tanks out of lakes, have budget to create giant disappearing acts and several other preposterous actions.
The one thing they do get quite right is the casting. How Liam Neeson managed to keep a straight face with all the insane things the director asked him to do is testament to his outstanding thespian skills. He actually takes John "Hannibal" Smith, his character, seriously and his scenes have a strange resonance that cancel the ridiculousness going on around him.
Copley bursts with energy as the insane H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock and while Jackson lacks the intensity of the iconic Mr. T, he does a satisfying job.
Perhaps the saddest thing about The A-Team is that for all its loudness and show-off-ness when you leave the theater you might have no recollection of what you just saw.

Chloe ***

Director: Atom Egoyan
Cast: Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried
Max Thierot, R.H. Thomson, Nina Dobrev, Mishu Vellani

Why do prostitutes always have unusual names? Are they pseudonyms they take on to embody their profession or is their career choice in a way determined by the way they're called?
This is one of the many enigmas embodied by the monosyllabic title character (played by Seyfried) whose main concern is giving her clients total satisfaction.
As part of her work, as an upscale prostitute, she makes it her job to find out what people want before they do and find ways to fulfill their every fantasy.
When she's approached by gynecologist Catherine Stewart (Moore) and after stating she doesn't work with single women, she encounters a strange request: Catherine wants Chloe to seduce her husband David (Neeson) and find out if he's cheating or if he's willing to do it. Catherine however and not her husband will be the client.
Always the professional, Chloe takes on the assignment and then meets with Catherine who attentively listens to how her husband acts with the young woman.
Seduced by the idea of learning more about her distant husband, Catherine establishes an unorthodox relationship with Chloe which soon proves to be more than either bargained for.
With Chloe Atom Egoyan once again explores sexuality and the way it affects the way we shape out life stories but perhaps because it's not his own screenplay (it was written by Erin Cressida Wilson and based on a French film) he doesn't always succeed in making the plot entirely his own.
The film is divided by two clashing ideologies; a dichotomy of sorts that's fascinating and complex in theory but feels unfinished in execution.
With Chloe and Catherine we have two women who are both extreme opposites and simultaneously compliment each other. They both built careers that depend on genitals, they both lack something in their lives and they are both fascinated by seduction.
But while Chloe relies on the dreams to rule her life and work, Catherine firmly establishes to one of her patients that "an orgasm is simply a series of muscle contractions" and there's "no mystery" to them.
What should we perceive from the fact that in a way Catherine is lying to her patient as she obsesses about the fact that her husband has stopped making love to her. Why doesn't she take this matter to her own hands in a literal way?
The fact that Chloe seems to be more in tune with who she is, should result remarkable until the movie turns her into a version of the character Rebecca de Mornay played in The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and seems to pass judgment on her.
Conversely we might also begin to wonder what's going on in Catherine's mind, the way her emotions lead her to act irrationally makes us see her behavior as a self sabotaged attempt at female emancipation.
Can she be creating a diversion to justify her own dissatisfaction with her marriage? While she thinks she's taking her destiny on her own hands in a way she is also relinquishing her happiness to her husband. Is blaming him the only way she can find to become free? In the process isn't she also becoming like him?
The notions of perception and the unknown are wonderfully executed by the two lead actresses, Moore as brilliant as ever, lingers dangerously between paranoia and despair. As she explores the fear of aging she also delivers one of her sexiest performances.
Amanda Seyfried is revelatory and has us guessing her motivations until the very end and in a way it's her performance that elevates the movie from a sloppy sexual thriller to a complex character study.
When Chloe reaches its climax, instead of complaining about the unsurprising road it takes we are left wondering if in the insane turn she takes in the end she wasn't in fact just satisfying Catherine's need for a little drama to make her feel alive?
After all she was the client.

Clash of the Titans *1/2

Director: Louis Leterrier
Cast: Sam Worthington, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen
Jason Flemyng, Polly Walker, Hans Matheson, Luke Evans
Alexa Davalos, Nicolas Hoult, Danny Huston
Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson

Imagine for one second that you're living in ancient Greece, with no television, internet or movies and all you have to entertain yourself are stories.
These stories of course won't tell you about mundane events but about things so fantastical that not only do they make your jaw drop to the floor but also serve as explanations of what's going on in the world around you.
Now before getting too deep into the concept of myth, imagine that centuries later you get these stories, but they are being told by someone who has great editing software, satisfying CGI but not an ounce of imagination.
This would sum up the experience of Clash of the Titans, a remake of the 1981 camp classic which tells of the struggles between men and deities in ancient times.
Sam Worthington (the go to guy for ordinary men-with killer calves-turned unexpected hero) plays Perseus, a demigod, son of Zeus (Neeson) and a mortal woman, who is chosen by the people of Argos to save them from the wrath of the Kraken.
The beast will be released by, god of the underworld, Hades (Fiennes) to teach humans not to defy the rulers of the Olympus.
Of course Hades has secret plans of his own (how could he not when played with such delicious wickedness by Fiennes?) and while Perseus has his adventures down below, the gods go through their own drama.
It should suffice to sum up the film's quality to say that you often might want more of the Olympian drama (probably owed to the quality of the actors playing them) than the struggles of Perseus who seems to fulfill cliché more often than prophecy.
Worthington lacks qualities to make his character interesting; when someone tells him that he has the "best of both worlds" they must be referring to sculpture and athleticism, because he lacks any inkling of humanity and doesn't have the grandiosity to be godlike. The other human characters fare equally, with princess Andromeda (Davalos) being little more than an ornament (while straying greatly from the myth and the original film) and the people Perseus encounters being nothing more than an assortment of great actors (Mikkelsen, Walker and Postlethwaite come to mind particularly) in tepid roles.
Perhaps the film's biggest flaw is in fact its constant ability to underwhelm. With or without added visual dimensions the film never transports you to another place. Visuals for this kind of movie should feel mythical, the ones here are yet another version of what was done in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and 300 to greater effect.
Action sequences are done in the recurrent style of making as many cuts as you can, which never gives us time to grasp the unique aspects of the creatures Perseus fights and every moment that promises excitement is minimized by the director's tendency to make everything seem rushed and easy.
How can a story of its kind be passed on to others when there is no sense of heroism or any special qualities to it?
In the end Clash of the Titans sadly never seems able to comprehend what epic means.

Clash of the Trailer.

I'm a big fan of 1981's "Clash of the Titans", I grew up on its strange combination of legendary actors playing gods (talk about a not so subtle comparison) and the divine work of Ray Harryhausen.
So naturally I'm very excited about this new version, I have my reservations of course, which with the trailer have become a ton.
Why the hell does CGI have to come and mess with my childhood memories? The wonderful thing about Medusa in the original was that she looked as if she was made during the glory days of the Greek! This shiny snake looks like Angelina Jolie in "Beowulf".
And as much as I love watching Sam Worthington in a skirt, why is he forced to act like a "300" extra? And what's with the ominous rock song used in the trailer?
And what the hell is wrong with that tagline? "Titans will clash"????? Really? Is that the best a multimillion dollar marketing team can come up with?
The silly redundant tagline could've worked if they'd gone straight to the release date afterwards, but no, they had to establish the movie's name...
Let us hope the movie is at least campy.