Clash Of The Titans

Where’s Ray Harryhausen when you need him? Presumably there was a reason to update the 1981 camp classic, which featured Harryhausen’s trademark stop-motion models, as we can now do it with oh-so-clever computer graphics. Yet, while Harryhausen’s monsters always raised a smile, they also somehow sucked you in – remember how great the sword fight scene in Jason And The Argonauts was? Here the thought of 1,000 nerdy geeks toiling away in advanced CG programmes to create Medusa or some giant insects adds to the feeling that this is a soulless, visually disappointing ‘epic’ – and it’s nowhere near camp enough to be funny.

Instead of Harry Hamlim we now get Sam Worthington as Perseus, the demi-god who sides with the humans when they decide to war with the gods. When exactly was it decided that Worthington is the new default star of epics? He wandered about in last year’s Terminator: Salivation, he was out-acted by his own cartoon in Avatar and now he stinks out the ancient world. His accent seems to get more Aussie the more he stays in Hollywood - well, g’day mate, how’s it going, I’m feeling ripper, might just get me a skinful and knock off a few monsters’ heads – you get the picture. He doesn’t even possess an impressive set of pecs, so it’s no wonder Mads Mikkelson’s Draco gives him a damn good hiding in a sword lesson – but then, as Perseus says, “I’m only a fisherman”. Maybe that’s why he stinks.

The rest of the cast fare little better to be fair, buried under a mountain of frankly dull special effects and laughably over-ripe dialogue straight from ye ancient worlde. At times the film that comes to mind is not the original Clash Of The Titans, but Caligula, and that can’t be a good thing (ot the hardcore porn scenes obviously, though they might have livened things up a bit). When Neeson’s Zeus and Fiennes’ Hades are going head to head it’s easy to laugh – much more difficult to work out whether it’s actually supposed to be funny. Neeson dials it in as usual while Fiennes seems to have a really sore throat.

The only actor who can claim to be in credit by the end is Gemma Arterton’s Io – any man would happily swing his big sword about to capture her heart. Sorry for the excruciating joke but it really is that sort of film. She could easily have been cast as Andromeda, the human whose sacrifice will appease the gods, but at least Io is a much bigger role and she holds her head up well. Davalos is an adequate Andromeda, and at least looks vaguely scared when offered up at the end.

Films like this though are not about the acting – which is always overdone – but the visuals, and here it’s a real disappointment. It’s a long wait for the opening battle, with Perseus and his mob tackling several giant scorpions, but it all looks so half-hearted, with the actors clearly chasing tennis balls on sticks. Harryhausen would have had a field day with this budget, but methinks he would have thrown his computer in the bin – effects are starting to look so generic.

The battle with Medusa is well-paced but again the creature herself is a let-down – she looks nothing like Margaret Thatcher. By the time the gods unleash the Kraken at the end it’s difficult to tell the difference between this and Transformers.  The 3D, by the way, adds absolutely nothing – it’s a gimmick which is already past its sell-by date. Much like the film, really.

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Overall Verdict: Nowhere near camp enough to be funny, nor daft enough to be enjoyable, this exists merely to show how computers can create monsters – they have succeeded, but not in the way intended. Utterly forgettable.

Reviewer Mike Martin