Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans Does everyone remember the original from the 1981? It had an all-star cast, including Lawrence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Harry Hamblin and Burgess Meredith to name a few. I remember it fondly because I always liked the special effects Ray Harryhausen came up with. (I loved those warrior-skeletons in Sinbad.)
The best way to describe this remake is “better special effects but the same old story.” Somehow the story of Perseus seems to have started out old and fallen into disregard from there, no doubt as a result of literary entropy. Greek mythology reads well but doesn’t seem to translate to the screen very well.
Sam Worthington stars as Perseus. His claim to fame is having been discovered by James Cameron and cast in the leading roll of the paraplegic Marine in Avatar. He is not required to act in either movie which plays to his strengths.
The story is as follows: Perseus is born and grows up. His father is Zeus but he doesn’t know this right away. He finds himself in Argos, a city where the people are in the process of rebelling against the gods—never a clever thing to do in ancient Greece. The gods become angry and Hades talks his not-overly-bright brother (Zeus) into letting him punish the humans with his pet Kraken, the most terrible creature every to come into existence. Hades then tells the citizens of Argos that they will all die at the next eclipse unless they sacrifice Andromeda, the kings beautiful daughter, thus returning the gods to their rightful places as . . . well . . . gods. Their only chance to escape this fate is to kill the Kraken, which is unkillable and has been tasked to destroy the city. So Perseus and a few Greek warriors go looking for the one thing that can destroy the invincible Kraken, which is the head of Medusa. It’s the usual plot-driver. As you know, Greeks invented the sitcom and this is a good example of the genre. Since the story is at least three thousand years old and we all have to read it in high school, giving away the ending won’t spoil anything. Perseus wins with the help of his doting father, who gives him a magic sword and the Pegasus (although this time the flying horse is black. This is what passes for ‘creativity’ and a ‘personal vision’ for the producers and director.) Naturally Perseus and his cohorts have to pass through all kinds of tests and challenges which is how all Greek stories go, and from which only Perseus returns unscathed. And by scathed I mean dead. It is essentially a melodrama.
The special effects are as good as one would expect in today’s market. I especially liked the way Hades enters and exits a scene. The Kraken is awesome. Basically it is a mutant cross between a squid and some kind of crustacean, and it is the size of Rhode Island. One wonders how something so huge could even see the Medusa head even when it is right in front of the beast, but it does, which turns it to stone.
The best scene is where Perseus picks up a golden mechanical owl he finds and asks what it is. The leader of the Greek soldiers scowls and says, “put it back,” and that’s the end of the owl.
A thin story line, zero characterizations, no profanity, no skin and good FX. There is absolutely no reason to see this movie, much less to have made it. I went with around eight members of the Voorhies clan and we all agreed that the 3-D effect not only did not add anything to the experience but actually detracted from it. I think I’m going to stop going to 3-D versions of movies. Nita didn’t go. She wasn’t interested and the movie started at the same time as her bedtime.
No cussing, no sex. In fact, nothing interesting at all. But you should still go see it.