MOVIE REVIEW! - "Clash of the Titans" (2010)

I remember actually being excited for this movie when it was about to come out. I mean, Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades? Who wouldn’t be excited. However, that excitement soon gave way to massive disappointment when I finally got to see the finished product.

I mention at the end of this review that the movie was ultimately forgettable. This proved to be true as I don’t remember much about the movie beyond the fact that everything seemed to have the same bland look and tone and that the performances were fine, but the top-notch cast just didn’t have a great script to pull from.

What’s even more surprising is that the movie got a sequel in 2012 called “Wrath of the Titans” which ended up being even more forgettable. It wasn’t like “Clash” blew the box office out of the water and no one was really asking for it at the time.

All that aside, here’s my original review for the 2010 remake of “Clash of the Titans”.

THE ORIGINAL REVIEW

Louis Leterrier, the director of 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk”, returns with a remake of the 1981 film, “Clash of the Titans”. Unfortunately, this version of the film contains shoddy special-effects and a rushed story with only one or two characters of any interest beyond Perseus. It’s a shame considering that the movie has a top-notch cast.

The film, like the original, is very loosely based on the Greek myth of Perseus (Sam Worthington). After Spyros (Pete Postlethwaite), a fisherman, finds baby Perseus in a coffin with his original mother, he chooses to raise the child as one of his own. He does not know how Perseus came to him or why he was in the coffin.

Perseus’ family is eventually killed in an attack by Hades (Ralph Fiennes) who is against soldiers who declare war on the gods by destroying a statue of Zeus (Liam Neeson). After Perseus is taken to Argos, he realizes his true heritage. He also discovers that he must learn how to stop the Kraken from destroying the people of Argos and their princess, Andromeda (Alexa Davalos).

Perseus and co. navigate a bland landscape in "Clash of the Titans".

There is more about what goes on in the movie but it would take forever to set up an ultimately lackluster film. The movie is all about being an action/adventure ride with great effects and great battles. Even on this level, the film fails to capture the audience’s imagination.

The special-effects are so choppy and look so bad that they might as well have gone with Ray Harryhausen’s original stop-motion animation from the original film. The scorpions often seen in the trailers for the movie look like they should appear in a video game rather than in this movie. Perseus flying on the back of Pegasus is also completely unconvincing while Medusa is completely uninspired and odes not even look like she was completed. When on considers the huge leaps made in the realm of computer generation, it was sad to see a film take a step in opposite direction.

Another sad thing about the movie is that the set direction is awful. The entrance into the Underworld looks like the other place where they find the Stygian Witches. The rest of the time, it just feels like they’re in a dessert the entire time.

There is a good cast lined up in the film, as I mentioned before. Worthington is good as Perseus, Gemma Aarterton is both beautiful and strong as Io, Fiennes is appropriately freaky as Hades and Mads Mikkelsen is good as the leader of the Praetorian Guard, Draco. The problem is that they are playing characters that end up being nothing more than two dimensional cutouts of the mythological beings.

In fact, there are not any other characters that are memorable. There are two rogue men that come along for the ride but are also completely unnecessary to the movie. Then there is an older soldier that tries to be the comic relief but most of the jokes fall flat. These characters are so forgettable that it is not even worth it to remember their names by the end of the film.

Getting to see Neeson as Zeus is probably one of the biggest highlights of the movie. Also, the rest of the set direction was bad, the design of the gods’ throne room on Mount Olympus was done just right. Above the shining thrones of the gods, there are millions of small statuettes resembling every man, woman, and child in the world. This set was so brilliantly designed that it was a shame that the story did not spend more time there.

In the end, “Clash” was marketed as an action/adventure film with brilliant special-effects. Unfortunately, the film features rushed effects and uninspired action in addition to a terrible story with almost completely forgettable characters. This means that the movie is one of the worst things that a movie can be: forgettable.