Deck Rickard
Eyes Up Here.
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2017
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I recently watched Troy: Fall of a City (it’s a few years old but the quarantine has been digging pretty far back into my Netflix queue), and it got me thinking about Greek mythology on film. That series was decent but it left me craving something bigger and better.
I know we have some cheesy classics like Jason & the Argonauts and the original Clash of the Titans, but I feel like there’s still so much untapped potential there. More recent efforts like Troy (with Brad Pitt) and Immortals had their moments, but they never quite reached the potential that films about the Trojan War or the Theseus/Minotaur myth could have. For the most part, the acting in those films is solid; I know people poked fun at Brad Pitt’s accent but I liked his intensity and overconfidence as Achilles. And I liked Henry Cavill as the noble, badass Theseus; I wish he would bring that kind of fire to some of his more recent roles. But where both of those films faltered was that they just felt small to me. Troy had a big budget and plenty of extras, but it reduced the 12-year Trojan war to like a week-long battle, and removed the fantastical elements entirely. Immortals seemed restricted by budget; the whole movie almost feels like a really well produced stage play. Though that might have just been Tarsem’s style.
300 fairs better, although the depiction of the Persians is downright offensive and it makes me unable to watch it anymore. Though Gerard Butler delivers an amazing performance (the one and only time that’s happened IMO) and the fight sequences are awesome.
These films are all a million times better than the Sam Worthington Clash of the Titans film; not only did it lack the fun and beauty of the original; it was hampered by Worthington’s wooden performance. I can’t blame it all on Sam though... the script was absolute garbage. And don’t get me started on the effects... I saw that **** in the theater and I believe it was the first post-production 3D conversion. I remember a mountain in the background suddenly looking like it leaped out of the screen and the entire audience gasped. Never bothered with the sequel.
Anyway, all that is to say that I feel like now that we’re running out of superheroes and young adult novels to adapt, Greek Mythology deserves another look. The technology now exists to make these films look fantastic, and hopefully if it does happen, they’ll learn from past narrative mistakes.
In the meantime though, I just found out about this old movie where Tom Hardy (clearly taking any role he could get at the time), Candyman and Roy Batty take on the Minotaur. It looks like an episode of Xena directed by Eli Roth.
I know we have some cheesy classics like Jason & the Argonauts and the original Clash of the Titans, but I feel like there’s still so much untapped potential there. More recent efforts like Troy (with Brad Pitt) and Immortals had their moments, but they never quite reached the potential that films about the Trojan War or the Theseus/Minotaur myth could have. For the most part, the acting in those films is solid; I know people poked fun at Brad Pitt’s accent but I liked his intensity and overconfidence as Achilles. And I liked Henry Cavill as the noble, badass Theseus; I wish he would bring that kind of fire to some of his more recent roles. But where both of those films faltered was that they just felt small to me. Troy had a big budget and plenty of extras, but it reduced the 12-year Trojan war to like a week-long battle, and removed the fantastical elements entirely. Immortals seemed restricted by budget; the whole movie almost feels like a really well produced stage play. Though that might have just been Tarsem’s style.
300 fairs better, although the depiction of the Persians is downright offensive and it makes me unable to watch it anymore. Though Gerard Butler delivers an amazing performance (the one and only time that’s happened IMO) and the fight sequences are awesome.
These films are all a million times better than the Sam Worthington Clash of the Titans film; not only did it lack the fun and beauty of the original; it was hampered by Worthington’s wooden performance. I can’t blame it all on Sam though... the script was absolute garbage. And don’t get me started on the effects... I saw that **** in the theater and I believe it was the first post-production 3D conversion. I remember a mountain in the background suddenly looking like it leaped out of the screen and the entire audience gasped. Never bothered with the sequel.
Anyway, all that is to say that I feel like now that we’re running out of superheroes and young adult novels to adapt, Greek Mythology deserves another look. The technology now exists to make these films look fantastic, and hopefully if it does happen, they’ll learn from past narrative mistakes.
In the meantime though, I just found out about this old movie where Tom Hardy (clearly taking any role he could get at the time), Candyman and Roy Batty take on the Minotaur. It looks like an episode of Xena directed by Eli Roth.
