by Scott Marks
Crítico de cine SDUN

“Clash of the Titans”
Directed by Louis Leterrier
Written by Travis Beacham, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi
Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Alexa Davalos

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

Forgive me for what will amount to fans as little more than cinematic heresy, but growing up the name Ray Harryhausen attached to a project promised little more than 15 minutes of quality animation buried beneath 100 minutes of terrible acting, wretched dialog and juvenile storytelling.

Sword and sandal epics are not my genre of choice and the addition of stop-motion animation, no matter how exceptional it is, was never enough of an incentive to plunk down money at the box office. I didn’t make it all the way through a Harryhausen feature until I was in my 30s and now I find myself in the unenviable position of watching remakes of films I wouldn’t go near in the first place.

I am a sucker for 3-D but I should have known better, particularly when the film was not designed for depth in the first place. With little more than two months to go before its release date, the execs at Warner Bros. panicked and decided the only way they were going to recoup so much as one penny of their investment was to drop another $30 million to stereoscopically revamp the production. The results are beyond dreadful.

With the exception of a flock of Pegasus, which would have looked just fine in 2-D, nothing in the film jumps out at you and that goes double for the film’s lead. When did I fall asleep and awaken to find movie theorem Sam Worthington as America’s newest action hero? Didn’t anyone else notice the red flags that went up during “Terminator: Salvation” or the giant blue CGI creatures that acted circles around him in “Avatar”?

In this case Worthington was called upon to recreate a role originally played by the handsome and hollow Harry Hamlin. Don’t expect him to improve on it. The original “Titans” also featured Lord Laurence Olivier at a point in his career when he would appear in just about anything for a paycheck. It’s only natural for the remake to recruit some contemporary actors with accents for sale. From “Schindler’s List” we have clashing Nazis Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes in addition to Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite. The latter must have agreed to participate only if his character was the first to be killed.

If I do have one recommendation concerning “Clash of the Titans” it’s that you see anything else that’s playing.

“Hot Tub Time Machine”
Directed by Steve Pink
Written by Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris
Starring: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and Clark Duke

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Admittedly, there is something just plain wrong about the MGM lion’s roar announcing the arrival of this film, but for a sick, gross-out, puerile, degraded, homoerotic, misogynistic time at the movies you could do a lot worse than “Hot Tub Time Machine.”

Being a diehard Howard Stern fan there is a part of me that enjoys my comedy base and blue, and if you are going to make a movie that exists solely to make audiences squirm from all the bad taste on display you had better cross so far over the line that there is no looking back. With its ragtag cast of relative unknowns basically reworking the premise of “Very Bad Things,” “The Hangover” just didn’t cut it for me. Not that “Hot Tub” is in the same league as “Borat” – if anything it’s closer in spirit and cinematic ineptitude to “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” – but the cast is very appealing and the scatological laughs connect more often than not.

John Cusack, who began his career in lowbrow teen comedies, produced and stars as a middle-aged loser recently dumped by his girlfriend who joins three of his friends in a hot tub that transports them 25 years into the past. Okay, while it’s not Arthur Miller the premise acts as a springboard for 100 minutes of serviceable fart and tit jokes guaranteed to satisfy millions of easily amused viewers.

How many times have you exited a theater complaining that most of the laughs the film had to offer were exhausted in the coming attraction? “Hot Tub” is only marginally guilty of that crime. Many of the big chuckles are in the trailer, but in different form. It’s as if they filmed a sanitized version for network TV that was used as preview bait.

Friendship has its rewards. Cusack assigned the directing duties to his lifelong cohort Steve Pink (“Accepted”) and the results couldn’t have been more technically incompetent. Normally I’d give credit for at least having the sense to hire a good cinematographer, but the film is hideous to look at. This might not be as shocking were it photographed by an eager duffer, but this is Jack N. Green, one of Clint Eastwood’s past partners. (For a finer example of Green’s lens prowess, check out the far superior “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”)

Look carefully and you’ll notice a blooper that didn’t land on the cutting room floor. When the four revelers arrive at their resort destination they immediately strap on skis and boogie boards to take to the slopes. After Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson crash land, Clark Duke rides up to assess the damage. The actor takes an unplanned tumble and his surprised laugh as he hits the deck remains in the finished product.

The films most flagrant waste of talent is a cameo by Jessica Paré (“Lost and Delirious,” “Wicker Park”) a lovely and otherwise gifted actress who is asked to do little more than discard her clothes and hop into a bubble bath with Clark Robinson. Surely the producers could have found an unemployed pole dancer to play that part.

The main reason to see the film is Rob Corddry. From his early days as a correspondent on “The Daily Show” to his standout appearance in “Harold and Kumar Go to Guantanamo,” Corddry has managed to transform his balding, average American demeanor into something delightfully disturbing. As the hyper-angry drug- and alcohol-addled life of the party (even though the party that is his life came crashing to a halt years earlier), Corddry manages to tap into male angst better than just about any comic working today.

“The Secret of Kells”
Directed by Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey
Written by Tom Moore and Fabrice Ziolkowski
Starring the Voices of Brendan Gleeson, Mick Lally, Evan McGuire and Christen Mooney

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

At a time when 3-D is poised to forever change the face of cinema as we know it, “The Secret of Kells” seems content to bring back 1-D. Imagine “South Park’s” limited animation played out against a quadrilateral stained-glass board game backdrop and you’ll have some indication of what secret “Kells” holds.

Having less interest in Celtic mythology than I do clashing titans, the film’s sweeping story about the ability of faith to carry us through dark times missed its mark. Tell me that the reason Brendan (Evan McGuire) can’t leave the Abbey of Kells, a remote medieval outpost under siege from raiding barbarians, is because Abbot Cellach (Brendan Gleeson) doesn’t want the young boy to discover girls and I could at least tap into some type of modern-day metaphor.

After a master writer/illustrator arrives with a magical book in tow he recruits Brendan to take to the enchanted forest in search of inkberries to fill his pen. Along the way he encounters Aisling (Christen Mooney), a wide-eyed young wolf-girl, who helps him find the coveted ink bearing fruit.

The only reason this film is getting a wide release is because the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences could not find another suitable animated film to nominate opposite “Up” for this year’s Best Animated Feature award. Too bad Academy voters didn’t receive for-your-consideration screeners of “Battle for Terra,” a much more engaging animated work.