Today I had the pleasure of sitting through a thoroughly enjoyable remake of a film based largely on ancient mythology that many nerds and geeks the world over consider to be a cult classic. Wait, I think I'm remembering this wrong. Oh! Scratch that! I actually sat on my own testicles for two hours wishing that Medusa would magically turn around in the seat in front of me and turn my horrified ass to stone while I watched Hollywood rape James Cameron's 3-D legacy for all it's worth.
Let's get things straight. "Clash of the Titans" could very well have crashed and burned had its producers not made two very understandable decisions. First, let's bump its release date back a few weeks so that we can sucker in all the high schoolers and college students who'll be bored on their spring breaks. Second, let's slap "3-D" on this bad boy so that said young people will think "Avatar meets Greek Mythology" (for the record, this is the first and only time I will note the obvious distinction that the Kraken is in no way even remotely Greek). But I digress.
Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone", you tried to warn me before I shelved out matinee money for this garbage. Evidently, I am every bit as stupid as "Clash of the Titans" would have me believe. Twenty minutes into this movie, I could tell that this movie had made some fairly bold presumptions about me. It probably thinks I'm the kind of person who enjoys coloring books and eating the occasional dirt ball, because at first glance it looks like an M & M. It assumes my attention span is too short to note any of the glaring plotholes that riddle this movie like stretch marks in a Mississippi whorehouse (if this metaphor is not indicative of Mississippi whorehouses, please drop me a line). It also assumes that you love Sam Worthington, and you love hearing him drone through the horrendous dialogue in about three different accents while repeating important points left and right so that you can keep up with the film's RELENTLESS pace!
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Relentless.
The worst part about "Clash of the Titans", however, is that there is no logical order to anything that occurs in the film. Louis Letterier was quoted not long ago as saying the following about his decision to remake the classic film: "I watched the original twice and then said 'how do we do it differently so that it becomes a bit more genuine?' (www.aintitcool.com/node/44432). He also said something along the lines of not liking Perseus' motivation enough in first one, so he felt the need to have the character come from a "more emotional place" in his version of the film. Thus, he did as anyone would do and cast Sam Worthington, who is more wooden in this film than the Djinn, who are made of freaking wood. A more emotional place in Letterier's film means killing off Perseus' parents (don't worry, you'll hardly have a chance to know them anyway) and then namedropping his father about fifty different times throughout the film.
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At this point, I would go on and talk about all the other horrendous performances in the movie, from Liam Neeson's disinterested Zeus to Ralph Fiennes' Hades, who seems to rasp and whisper every line of dialogue as if Fiennes himself is embarrassed to be a part of this crap. Oh yeah, and Danny Huston makes a startling turn as Poseidon, complete with ONE FUCKING LINE IN THE WHOLE MOVIE.
Hold on, I lost my primary point somewhere in all of this. Oh yeah, the plot sequencing. Nothing in "Clash of the Titans" makes an ounce of sense when weighed against Greek mythology or, gasp, common logic. Things just happen. Perseus happens across the pegasus early in the film only so that the pegasus can swoop into the underworld later on and rescue Perseus. No explanation. Calibos' blood breeds giant scorpions (not as cool as they sound) that are effing terrifying for about five minutes before being turned into LOTR oliphants that Perseus and company ride across the desert. Think about that for a moment. THEY RIDE GIANT SCORPIONS SPROUTED FROM A FALLEN KING'S CURSED BLOOD. Holy effing Christmas.
And then you have the Kraken, or at least a creature called the Kraken, who seems to serve no purpose other than to take about fifteen minutes to raise out of the ocean and for Liam Neeson to deliver his most cringeworthy morsel of dialogue to date. If you have seen a single commercial for "Clash of the Titans" you have seen the coolest footage of the Kraken. Everything after that just looks like a crossbred vampire-turtle-dildo with tentacles (you would think such an item would appeal to both the "Twilight" and "TMNT" fanbase...).
Okay, I am literally exhausted from my hatred for this movie. The last point that I would make is the love story between Perseus and Io, which seemed about as forced as Gemma Arterton's painstaking attempts to isolate an expression on the emotional spectrum other than surprise and confusion. They even strike up romantic tension on the mythic boat the Charon navigates across the Styx, because boy, oh, boy, nothing kindles the mood like a brief yacht-ride across the river of the damned!
For the love of the gods, save your money and avoid this one at all costs. Rent the original. You may not love it. You may even hate it. But know that I have saved you precious dollars and moments of your life that would have been wasted watching this unoriginal, thoroughly intolerable garbage.
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