Word: stygian
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Like the wailing of the Stygian witches, the critical cry has arisen against Clash of the Titans. This mythological epic, starring Avatar's Sam Worthington as the ancient adventurer Perseus, has endured a typhoon of negative reviews, for four reasons. One: After shooting the picture in the traditional format, the filmmakers slapped on 3-D effects at the last minute. Two: Director Louis Leterrier and his team dared to remake the 1981 original, replacing stop-motion genius Ray Harryhausen's handcrafted creatures - Medusa, the Kraken, the giant scorpions, etc. - with computer-generated ones. Three: The new picture reduces the role...
...existential dilemma to that of a Samuel Beckett play. There are differences, though. Instead of being buried to the neck in sand, or stranded on the road to nowhere, Lawrence (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Whannel, who also wrote the script) are chained on opposite sides of a Stygian bathroom, with a lifeless body between them...
...minimal streetlights. That's tough to capture in photographs, for example, save perhaps for satellite images that have shown North Korea as a (literally) benighted nation. But Delisle uses drawings of a dim hotel lobby with a lonely turtle swimming in a tank, or of people carrying loads down stygian streets, to convey a powerful sense of gloom. At one point he decides to see how many effigies to Kim Jong Il he can find in a single day. After counting more than 30 of them, he looks in the mirror and is horrified to see the Dear Leader staring...
Before descending into the Stygian darkness of the dining room proper, where flashlights and even luminous watches and mobile phones are prohibited, customers choose their fare in the restaurant's brightly lit, cheerfully decorated entrance hall. To add to the spirit of mystery, individual dishes are not clearly identified as, say, goat cheese on a tomato beignet. Instead, enigmatic descriptions such as "a flying visit to an Alpine cheese factory" make the diners even more curious about what's soon to hit their palettes. It's all very reminiscent of the exotic dinner parties planned by the Futurists, the early...
...palms. Furthermore, computer generated images are never overused, nor do they ever blatantly appear false. Rather, the special effects are seamlessly integrated into the whole, giving rise to an exciting, organic blend. Certain sequences are stunning for their imagination and their execution, such as the depiction of the hellish Stygian Prison in the Hades Universe. Furthermore, the final duel between Yulaw and Gabriel is picture-perfect, creating the illusion that Li is truly battling his clone. Special effects and wires are used to break the laws of physics in new and innovative ways. Suffice it to say that no battle...