Clash of the Titans: The gods must be boring

I will state at the very beginning that it has been decades since I watched the original Clash of the Titans. I vaguely remembering the stiffness of Harry Hamlin's acting and creepiness of the Medusa. But, the memories are so vague, that I was able to judge the new Clash on its own merits. Unfortunately, even when compared against absolutely nothing, Clash of the Titans still fails on almost all accounts.

Clash follows the adventures of Perseus, a demigod who was the result of a late night bedding between Zeus and a mortal woman. Cast at sea at birth by his angry human father, Perseus is found by a fisherman who raises him. The fisherman and his family are later killed by Hades as a result of collateral damage when Hades attacks a town who rebelled against the gods. Perseus vows vengeance against Hades and is told that, in order to defeat, he must first defeat the Kraken, a deadly sea creature that Hades vows to let loose upon the town in 10 days because of their insolence. Perseus now has to gather the tools he will need to defeat both the Kraken as well as Hades.

Unfortunately, I managed to make the movie more exciting than it was. There was not one single moment in the film that I was ever engaged or caught up in the story. The action scenes were just set pieces with anonymous characters whose names I couldn't remember 5 minutes after the film ended. One of the biggest reasons is that the character of Perseus is barely drawn. All of the opening scenes are rushed and we don't really know or care about the character or his motivations. And Sam Worthington (a robotic actor who somehow is suddenly popping up in major movies including Avatar and Terminator: Salvation (I said they were "major" not necessarily "good") does little to bring any charm or charisma to a character that we should be rooting for. As a result, he comes across than little more than an computer effect in a giant video game of a movie.

In addition, the movie appears to be only half-way thought out. Like the original story, Andromeda (a princess of the town under attack) is told that she must be sacrificed in order for the town to avoid destruction. However, unlike the original movie where Perseus was in love with Andromeda (thereby providing his motivation), here Perseus has one brief scene with her and his motivation for destroying the town has nothing at all to do with her. Thus, since the main character care little for her, there's no reason at all for us to care about her fate as well. To show how trivial that subplot is, they could have dropped it entirely and it would not have affected the story in the least.

What is really sad is that there are some good actors in this movie including Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades. The last time these two actors worked together was in Schindler's List and their one scene in that movie together had more tension, drama and suspense than all of Clash combined. But the fault didn't lie with the actors, it lay with the script. For Zeus, his actions were contrary at best. At times he was dismissive of Perseus and refused to step while, at other times, he became a concerned father who wanted to protect his son. The switches in attitude were based on the story demands and no actual true character motivation. Likewise, Hades had none of the creepiness or danger that Fiennes is more than capable of bringing to his roles. They tried their best but the direction and script completely let them down.

What finally did it for me was the conclusion. Without going into too great of detail, the final battle between Hades and Perseus was the single most anti-climatic battle I have ever seen in a movie. Throughout the movie, Perseus made it clear that he was gunning for Hades and, when he did finally face him, the battle was over in a matter of seconds. It is the equivalent of, in Return of the Jedi, Luke faces Darth Vader and the Emperor at the end and, instead of the light saber duel, Luke instead quickly shoots both of them dead with one shot each. Instead, they treated the Kraken as the "big" battle and even that was over in a matter of moments upon Perseus' arrival. By making the big battles so quick and perfunctory, it reflects the filmmaker's attitude towards the story and lack of general knowledge of packing and story telling.

As I mentioned, I only vaguely remember the original Clash of the Titans so that wasn't the movie I was comparing it to. Instead, the Greek mythology film I had in my head while watching the remake was Walt Disney's Hercules. And that is the Greek myth retelling that I will gladly and happily go back to in the future.

GRADE: D-