Directed by
Louis Leterrier
118 minutes
Rated MA
Reviewed by
Andrew Lee
Clash Of The Titans
Synopsis: Sam Worthington is Perseus, bastard son of Liam Neeson, also known as Zeus. Raised by Pete Postlethwaite, a fisherman, he is ignorant of his heritage. When a bunch of rather bold atheists piss off the gods by tearing down the statue of Zeus, his family is killed by a bad CGI version of Ralph Fiennes as Hades, god of the underworld. Cue Perseus and a plan to enact bloody revenge.Dire, witless, charmless, clunky, oafish, boorish, and without any sense of irony, this clunker is almost a total waste of celluloid. If you must see it, know that it wasn’t filmed in 3D, but instead post-processed to create the 3D effect. In other words, it’s not in 3D and you’ll be wasting your money paying the extra few bucks to see it that way. (Reminds me of the old saying, “You can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter”.) Know also that if you have any love of the old Clash of the Titans with the fun Ray Harryhausen stop-0motion creatures, this isn’t anything like it. The acting and storyline all feel like they were borrowed from a bad 80s cop revenge thriller:“They killed my family, now they’re gonna pay.” The overarching idea that man has become tired of the gods and wants to move on, is an interesting one, particularly given the recent atheist world conference held in Melbourne. I was also reminded of a Terry Pratchett joke in his Discworld novels, “Just because they can strike me with lightning isn’t going to make me believe in them!” Unfortunately, neither avenue of thought is given any screentime. Instead, we get the sight of Sam Worthington killing his nascent career stone dead as he woodenly declares that while he might be half-god, he’s going to achieve greatness as a man, and nothing more than that.
Clash Of The Titans is awful. It’s not even winking at you when it makes terrible jokes. Some of the actors appear to be in on the joke, Mads Mikkelsen (!?!) being the best of them, but sadly they’re few and far between. If it had been given a rocking heavy metal soundtrack, it could have become an awesomely cheesy music video. But it wasn’t. And it isn’t. I give it half a star for the occasionally interesting creature designs and half a star for Zeus making a quip about wanting to redeem mankind without it costing him a son. Gemma Arterton as Io is attractively distracting, but not enough to warrant an extra half-star. If you’re desperate for a time killer you might survive this. But seriously, what were they thinking?
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