Cast: Sam Worthington, Gemma Arterton, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Louis Leterrier
Screenplay: Travis Beacham
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Runtime: 106 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Country: USA
Don't mistake Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans remake as a loving revamp of the 1981 Greek mythology camp-classic. It's anything but. Instead, it's inane, inept and juvenile, carelessly dished out to feed the Hollywood mainstream cinematic starvation populated by masses of lunkheaded, all-explodin', shoot-'em-up video game generation. It's pitched for those who worship Michael Bay, James Cameron and Roland Emmerich, directors whose entire directorial canon involve more set explosions than explosive storytelling, rather than the self-confessed Greek mythos geeks. Here, Leterrier ditches the drama, togas, youthful innocence and all semblance of narrative wit to make something excessively loud and noisy, stuffing shitload of nasty creatures one sequence after another, pitting hero Perseus against shrieking harpies, giant scorpions, CGI Gorgon Medusa and a Kraken the size of an Olympic stadium. It should have worked a lot better if it weren't for a mythically turgid performance of Sam Worthington as Perseus, whose appearance here isn't so much a Greek demigod as US Navy Marine, all shaven head and buffed-up as though he just walked straight out of the Avatar set and stepped into a sword-and-sandal movie accoutrements. It also doesn't help that the characters here spit out dialogues that seem to come out straight from the "How To Make A Hollywood Epic for Dummies" screenplay book, with Gemma Arterton's criminally ill-advised goddess Io blurting out unnecessary expositions at every opportunity, just in case you've nodded off. And if she's not onscreen, we are tormented with a painfully ludicrous Liam Neeson as Zeus in glittering armoury, the most indecisive Olympian God, ordering an attack on Argos one minute and backing Perseus the next. Ralph Fiennes, arguably this film's show-stealer, is deliciously entertaining but his hunch-backed, hoarse-throated Hades looks like Lord Voldemort attempting to put on a Rocky Horror Picture drag show.
Greek mythology goes heavy metal and ends up astronomically dull. One of the year's worst films, with a turgid Worthington lumbering from big effects-laden set-piece to the next, devoid of any storytelling panache. And there isn't really much clashing of titans as there's only one titan involved - so Hollywood, who the fuck cares?
Review by The Moviejerk © Janz
