Tarsem Singh (1) (1961–)

When finishing a film that admittedly looks gorgeous, but has a paper-thin plot, and then shruggingly checking out the deleted scenes since the disc is in anyway, it's perplexing in the extreme to find just how much of the film's blandness would have been mitigated had they made different (cough better cough) choices in the cuts. About half the deleted scenes would have improved the film notably. Would it then have been good? No. It'd still have been a bland story. But it would at least have made me invest somewhat in the characters, understand their motivations and care about their journeys. And with the exception of one major plot point that would still have needed a lot more exposition than it got, it would have generally given the plot more substance. It would also have given it a much superior ending, over the empty Hollywood bow-on-top nonsense they decided to stick with.

But oh well. The cinematography is still wonderful, and Evans, Cavill, Hurt, Pinto and particularly Rourke all do impressively with the horribly limited material they're given to work with. And there are Greek gods being cool (even if all but Zeus and Athena are so blandly presented as to be virtually unidentifiable), which is the main thing I look for in most movies. Or it should be.… (more)