1/2

This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

It’s a Sunday night at college. You’ve just ended a long, revel-filled weekend and are falling into bed when you bolt awake, suddenly remembering your Lit professor expects a 10-page paper first thing in the morning. You type furiously until your eyelids are as heavy as anvils. What you hand in is far from your best work—rushed, at times incomprehensible, lacking the sort of thoughtful linearity that will earn you a passing grade, much less an “A.” You are a student at the University of Hollywood, and the title of your paper is Clash of the Titans.

Born a god but raised a man, Perseus (Terminator Salvation and Avatar IT man Sam Worthington) is the offspring of a human mother and Zeus, the king of the gods (Liam Neeson). When humankind decides to spurn the gods (an astonishingly idiotic decision given the disproportionate powers of the players), who of course retaliate, Perseus finds himself leading a band of soldiers through a gauntlet of obstacles on their way to save the city of Argos from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), king of the underworld. Hell hath no fury as a god scorned. From giant scorpions to the stony glare of the gorgon, Perseus must find a way to defeat the dreaded Kraken or perish trying.

In a perfect world, films would be judged on their unique merits alone. But when you are a remake, comparisons are not just inevitable, they are compulsory. Luckily, with Clash of the Titans, the film you’re being compared against is hardly a masterpiece, a movie that felt like an anachronistic throwback even when it debuted in 1981. But the original cult classic had one thing going for it. Cheesy as it was, it was undeniably fun. This new version is not fun at all. Whereas the first film embraced its sprawling campiness and actually used that as a means to lubricate its fantastical plot, the new version is all business. Unfortunately, this earnestness cannot exist in the same time and space as thunderbolt tossing gods, blind witches, giant scorpions and flying horses. (Mercifully, R2D2 masquerading as an owl is gone…sort of.)

Ray Harryhausen’s delightful, if antiquated, stop-motion magic (it was the special effects wizard’s final film) have been replaced by the sound and fury of CGI, which replicates reality (insofar as we recognize it contextualized in a mythological setting), but on a surface level only. There is only the illusion of something beneath the skin. The film’s climax, in which our hero rides the winged Pegasus, bobbing and weaving through the monolithic tentacles of a colossal beast, cannot begin to come close to the awe and excitement produced in a similar scene in last week’s How to Train Your Dragon.

There was immeasurably more life, dynamism and energy in Harryhausen’s marionettes than in these seemingly flawless avatars. This new half-snake/half-woman Medusa, imperfect as she is, is better, and there is no denying that the Kraken actually looks as if it might be able to pulverize an entire city. But they and their digital kind exist only as spectacle. They never come alive in a way that the first film’s creatures, fake even to the children who first saw them, unquestionably did. (It doesn’t help that some of the live-action creatures are no less convincing.) Compounding this problem is Warner Bros.’ last minute, post-production decision to convert the film into 3D. The artificial 3D is distractingly awful, smearing the frame, blurring the contents, and, especially during the chaotic and convulsive fight sequences, losing the action entirely.

While Clash of the Titans doesn’t pretend to be authentic Greek mythology (it doesn’t even pass for an authentic movie), it’s a shame it couldn’t be more of a primer for what is unquestionably some of the richest and most rewarding folklore humankind has ever produced.

© Copyright 2010 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.

Directed by Louis Leterrier
Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen, Jason Flemyng, Alexa Davalos
Rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence, some frightening images and brief sensuality.
Running time: 118 minutes