CLASH OF THE TITANS (Louis Leterrier, 2010) **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2010)

When I first heard about this one, I was not enthused – not just in view of Hollywood's lamentable obsession with remakes (and it no longer even matters whether the original was successful, or for that matter any good, to begin with!) but also because the 1981 film had been partly shot over here in Malta and had been among my very first trips to the cinema!
In retrospect, the result is more or less the equal but certainly not preferable to it – especially when pitting the earlier version's charming stop-motion technique vs. today's over-reliance on CGI; for all the progress in the art of visual effects, nothing they came up with here can be compared with Ray Harryhausen's still-amazing creatures from the original: especially lacking in this regard are the none-too-scary Medusa and the absurdly ALIEN-like Kraken dispatched in no time at all during the climax!
Sam Worthington in the lead role of Perseus comes across as appropriately stoic but still miscast, given that his mannerisms are all-too-modern! Liam Neeson, then, is imposing as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes a menacing Hades (though some of the latter's over-the-top antics brought to mind those cheesy effects-laden flops from my childhood days – namely BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, HOWARD THE DUCK and THE GOLDEN CHILD {all 1986})!; incidentally, watching this, I completely forgot these two actors had already appeared together in SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993).
The new CLASH OF THE TITANS is oddly compact (running 12 minutes shorter than the 1981 film), so that it then ends up feeling somewhat undernourished as a narrative! For one thing, I did not approve of the various plot changes: why should Hades (who does not even figure in the original) hold dominion over the Kraken when it is a creature of the seas, hence Poseidon's territory (played here by a barely-glimpsed Danny Huston – which goes for the other Olympian gods as well)?! Similarly, Calibos' role is diminished in favor of Hades (not to mention, sporting a far less terrifying guise than Neil McCarthy's in the original) and, in the same vein, Perseus gets a fellow demi-goddess for a lover (Gemma Arterton as new character Io rather than Princess Andromeda – again, greatly undermining the latter's stature and Perseus' interest in his quest to begin with!). Yet another novelty is the Gill Man-like creature(s) Perseus & Co. meet in the desert: with this and the tamed giant scorpions, one has almost begun to perilously tread "Star Wars" terrain! And what to make of the hysterics of that insufferable high priest, inciting the people to human sacrifice in order to placate the wrath of the gods?!
Mind you the film is more than adequate entertainment for the duration (with reasonable action sequences and a surprisingly good sense of a devastated world) but it is also not particularly memorable or rewarding – unlike the earlier version which, furthermore boasted a majestic music score that finds no equal here. In this respect, it is telling that the only previous effort I had watched from director Leterrier was the likewise unoriginal (if slightly better) THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)