Watching a Jonathan Liebesman film is like watching a screensaver for fifty years whilst a five year old incorrectly recites the alphabet dressed in diamonds, gold and covered in tuna. He's representative of a new breed of cinematic ultra hack, third generation Steven Spielbergs and James Camerons who, unlike their predecessors - who were typically uninterested in everything but FX and action - are simply uninterested in everything. In this regard, Liebesman's films have a special, all encompassing ineptness, barely serviceable plot and dialogue existing only to lead up to barely serviceable CGI and action scenes which only exist to lead up to barely serviceable plot and dialogue.
What's staggering is the massive budgets, and the huge amounts of FX work, that typically goes into Liebesman's films. All this money, all this time, all this production work, and yet his films are staggeringly bland and artless. He's one of those artists who came of artistic age in that awkward gap pre-video game but post Spielberg/Lucas/Cameron idolatry. What he thinks is cool is immediately outdated to 5 year olds who multi-player maul monsters morning to midnight on flat-screens and laptops.
"Wrath of the Titans" is a sequel to "Clash of the Titans". It's a popcorn movie which pulls from Greek mythology. As this mythology relied on oration, imagination, the inconceivable and the abstract, it is impossible for anyone other than a genius to translate it to cinema and not produce a goofy film.
Still, Liebesman's film has two mildly interesting shots: a top down view of three warriors being squashed by a wall, and one brief visual in which giant cyclops walk along a hilltop as humans scurry at their feet. That's about 2 seconds of art in a feature length film. Thankfully the film stars Rosamund Pike, who I suppose is also some kind of genetic work of art, with exotically high cheekbones and a nose like a peanut. Aussie actor Sam Worthington is our action hero; he does his usual shtick, his real life confusion as to how he ended up a mega-action star mimicking the befuddlement of all his characters.
The film is a sequel to "Clash of the Titans", a bad film which actually moved well, had some self-depreciation about it, thanks to European action director Louis Leterrier. Perhaps the best of this new wave of sword-and-sandals action-mythology films are "The Eagle", "Beowulf" and "Immortals", by Tartem Singh.
0/10 - Rewatch "Conan The Barbarian" instead. Worth no viewings.
What's staggering is the massive budgets, and the huge amounts of FX work, that typically goes into Liebesman's films. All this money, all this time, all this production work, and yet his films are staggeringly bland and artless. He's one of those artists who came of artistic age in that awkward gap pre-video game but post Spielberg/Lucas/Cameron idolatry. What he thinks is cool is immediately outdated to 5 year olds who multi-player maul monsters morning to midnight on flat-screens and laptops.
"Wrath of the Titans" is a sequel to "Clash of the Titans". It's a popcorn movie which pulls from Greek mythology. As this mythology relied on oration, imagination, the inconceivable and the abstract, it is impossible for anyone other than a genius to translate it to cinema and not produce a goofy film.
Still, Liebesman's film has two mildly interesting shots: a top down view of three warriors being squashed by a wall, and one brief visual in which giant cyclops walk along a hilltop as humans scurry at their feet. That's about 2 seconds of art in a feature length film. Thankfully the film stars Rosamund Pike, who I suppose is also some kind of genetic work of art, with exotically high cheekbones and a nose like a peanut. Aussie actor Sam Worthington is our action hero; he does his usual shtick, his real life confusion as to how he ended up a mega-action star mimicking the befuddlement of all his characters.
The film is a sequel to "Clash of the Titans", a bad film which actually moved well, had some self-depreciation about it, thanks to European action director Louis Leterrier. Perhaps the best of this new wave of sword-and-sandals action-mythology films are "The Eagle", "Beowulf" and "Immortals", by Tartem Singh.
0/10 - Rewatch "Conan The Barbarian" instead. Worth no viewings.