Plot
The film begins with a narration that explains the three Olympians who battled the Titans long ago: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Hades provided their means of defeating the Titans with his creation, the Kraken. After the Titans' defeat, Zeus created humans and ruled them while Poseidon ruled the sea, but Hades, having been deceived by his brother Zeus and forced to rule the Underworld, learns an alternative way of gaining power from humans different from his brothers receiving theirs from human prayer: through fear.
Millennia later, a fisherman named Spyros finds a coffin adrift in the sea, discovering a baby, Perseus, and his dead mother, Danaë, inside. Spyros decides to raise Perseus as his own. Years later, Perseus and his family are fishing when they witness a group of soldiers from Argos destroying a statue of Zeus as a declaration of war against the Gods. Hades appears and transforms into a flock of harpies to massacre the soldiers before he himself destroys Perseus' family's fishing boat. Perseus tries to save his family, but to no avail, the surviving soldiers take Perseus back to Argos. During a feast for the returning soldiers, King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia of Argos compare themselves and their daughter, Andromeda, to the gods much to their daughter's dismay. After convincing his brother to let him loose on humanity to punish Argos for its defiance, Hades appears in the courtroom before killing the remaining soldiers while Perseus is unaffected. Revealing Perseus to be the demigod son of Zeus, and aging Cassiopeia to death, Hades threatens that if Princess Andromeda is not sacrificed to the Kraken, Argos will be destroyed in ten days. Hermes, the messenger god, approaches Zeus on Olympus, revealing the location of his son Perseus. While Hermes suggests offering Perseus sanctuary, Zeus declares that he shall be left to his fate, along with the other infidel mortals.
The king seeks the help of Perseus after he is beaten and threatened to be thrown in a fire pit. Perseus initially refuses and gets locked in the dungeon, until he meets Io, a woman who does not age as punishment for refusing to be seduced by the God Ares. Io then reveals his conception was a punishment conducted by Zeus on Acrisius, the former king of Argos who was married to Danaë, for his actions against the Gods. Zeus sneaked in disguised as Acrisius, and in that form he copulated with Danaë. When the real Acrisius entered, Zeus escaped. When Acrisius set Danaë and the baby Perseus adrift in their coffin, an enraged Zeus struck Acrisius with lightning, leaving him hideously disfigured. After learning that killing the Kraken would allow him to have his revenge against Hades, Perseus accepts as he and Argos' finest soldiers embark on a quest to find the Stygian Witches with a pair of Persian monster-hunters named Ixas and Kucuk, and Io following. To counter this turn of events, Hades enlists Acrisius, now called Calibos, and imbues him with superhuman powers in order to kill Perseus.
While in the woods, Perseus and his men discover a sword forged in Olympus that will only display power if it is wielded by Perseus. While separated from the group, Perseus encounters Zeus' sacred herd of flying horses, the Pegasus. However, Perseus refuses both the sword and the pure-black Pegasus that the gods were offering as assistance, as he does not wish to be a god. Calibos attacks the group and tries to murder Perseus, killing several soldiers in the process, but Calibos is unsuccessful, losing his hand before escaping. However, Calibos's blood forms giant scorpions from the sand that attack Perseus and his group. Though they slay several scorpions, most of the group are slain, and the survivors are surrounded by more of the monsters. They are saved by the Djinn, a band of shamans once human, who have turned themselves into the demons of Arabian mythology by replacing their earthly flesh with ash and stone; thus making them immortal. The mysterious beings are able to hypnotize the scorpions into submission. Though not trusted prior to healing Perseus's wound, the Djinn leader, Sheikh Suleiman, joins Perseus's group as his kind wish to see the gods' wish for destruction to fail.
The heroes arrive at Garden of Stygia, learning from the Stygian Witches that the head of the Gorgon Medusa could kill the Kraken. Io warns Perseus not to ask the witches for any more information, but he stays to listen. They say his group will die in the process, which causes all of the djinn except for Suleiman to leave them. After leaving the witches, with the hunters taking their leave, Perseus is visited by Zeus who offers him asylum on Mount Olympus, but he refuses. Zeus gives him instead a golden drachma, which Perseus later learns is a means to bribe Charon for passage into the Underworld. While Io remains outside Medusa's lair, due to a spell that prevents any woman from entering the area, Perseus's remaining soldiers fight hard to stay alive, being turned to stone one by one by her gaze. But with Suleiman self-destructing himself and Draco's sacrifice, Perseus manages to behead Medusa. Perseus emerges in time to see Calibos stab Io from behind. Perseus engages Calibos in combat and kills him using the sword from Olympus, turning him back into Acrisius in human form. With his final breath as Hades's power leaves him, Acrisius tells Perseus to never become a god. Perseus stays with the dying Io until she passes on and flies away in gold dust to Olympus. He then rides Pegasus back to Argos with Medusa's head to find some of Argos's citizens have formed a Cult of Hades and are planning to sacrifice Andromeda to the Kraken against the king's wishes. By then, Hades reveals to Zeus the destruction of Argos will give him enough power to overthrow the other Olympians; when Zeus reveals Perseus is still alive in Argos, Hades leaves his powerless brother to ensure his victory.
Perseus returns to Argos, but Hades sends his furies to stop him. Perseus defeats the creatures sent by Hades and uses the head of Medusa to turn the Kraken into stone as Cepheus is killed by the cult leader, who is then crushed under the shattering Kraken. Hades appears and sneers that Perseus cannot kill him, since he is a God. Perseus retorts that while Hades can live forever, it will not be in the world of men and uses the sword with Zeus' lightning bolt to banish Hades back to the Underworld. After saving Argos from destruction and Andromeda from drowning, Andromeda herself suggests that Perseus become king and rule Argos at her side, but he declines. On the broken statue of Zeus, the God of Olympus appears before Perseus again and offers to make him a god, but for a second time he refuses. Zeus warns Perseus that Hades will return to rule the world in darkness when he amasses enough fear from mankind. Since Perseus is intent to stay on Earth, Zeus resurrects Io, then Zeus disappears while Pegasus flies above them.
No comments:
Post a Comment