Terrible remake!

Rating: 3/10 (3 April 2010)

They completely changed the storyline and the changes were obvious from the beginning. This storyline was based more on Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades and how Zeus tricked and banished Hades to the underworld. Hades, wanting revenge, plots a way to grow stronger to overthrow Zeus by feasting on the fears and anger of Zeus' children (humans), and then directly intervenes throughout the movie to help his cause. The religious overtones of the movie were blatant throughout - Gods are only immortal because of man's faith and the gods need to be acknowledged or man would feel their wrath for their lack of faith and insolence.
Perseus goes out of his way to not acknowledge Zeus as his father, much in the way a modern-day atheist would denounce Jesus as his savior or God as the creator. There are several instances of anti-religion bantering with the only pro-religion jargon coming from the gods themselves and some crazed guy you would find on any corner in an urban city preaching to passersby that they need to seek salvation.
King Acrisius was killed by Zeus in the original movie for tossing Danae and Perseus in the sea and the Kraken released to destroy Argos. That whole scenario changed and there was no Kraken that took out Argos in the beginning. Instead of Perseus and his mom washing up on a shore for him to be raised, a fisherman found the casket afloat, brought it onto his ship, and found only Perseus to still be alive. Perseus was raised as a fisherman.
This new version introduces King Cepheus (Vincent Regan, who played Brad Pitt's right-hand man in Troy) and Queen Cassiopeia (Polly Walker or Rome fame) as rulers of Argos instead of Joppa. Cassi' starts going off about how hot her daughter is, which is when Hades shows up and threatens to either release the Kraken to kill Andromeda as a sacrifice or it will destroy the city. The goddess Thetis is nowhere to be found as a catalyst to start Perseus on his crusade to get Medusa's head. Perseus is imprisoned, which is when Io (played by Gemma Arterton who is Bubo's replacement, so to speak) shows up telling him that she has watched over him his entire life. The soldiers of Argos figure out Perseus is a demigod and try to rough him up a bit (because everyone is hating on religion and anything to do with the gods), when King Cepheus stops them so that he can find a way to stop the Kraken.
There are no ties between Andromeda and Calibos. This is a huge change and in my opinion a major error.
The introduction of Perseus' equipment he used to in the original movie was revamped and he only got a sword...no shield or helmet from the gods. The shield he eventually used to fight Medusa was fashioned from a scorpion shell and was given to him by two add-on yahoo characters that played the comic relief. The sword was something only Perseus could wield...kinda like a metal version of a light saber. Yet, he did not want to use it because he wanted to do this whole thing "as a man" without the reliance of the gods and his demigod abilities. The storyline behind Pegasus was introduced at this point and ended up being a black horse (whiskey tango foxtrot!?!?!).
Calibos met up with Hades at some point, who infused the deformed man with the power of hell. Calibos stalked Perseus in an attempt to stop him from finding a way to defeat the Kraken. A battle ensued between Perseus and Calibos and after Caibos' blood was spilled in the sand large scorpions were raised (unlike the original when it was Medusa's blood). It is at this time a race of mystical beings is introduced that controlled huge scorpions. All I can ask is - Why?
Perseus eventually gets Medusa's head and goes to kill the Kraken, whose head looks remarkably like the Stygian Witches that Perseus met up with earlier. (Did they run out of monster models??) In the end, Perseus and Andromeda do not live happily ever- after...Perseus and Io do, but only after Zeus resurrects her.
The casting was totally jacked (with few exceptions), especially with Perseus and Zeus. Perseus was played by a totally unbelievable guy (Sam Worthington) that looked more like an skinny extra in a Marine Corps flick. They could have used someone like Eric Bana, who would have been a much more believable Perseus. I still maintain that Liam Neeson made a poor Zeus and that they could have done much better.
The playwright Ammon was eliminated, which I always thought was a superb character to tell the story. Another huge error in the revamped story.
I totally dug that they used that conniving woman that played Atia of the Julii (Polly Walker) to play Andromeda's mother. That's about it for the kudos in casting.
The original Bubo the Owl made a cameo appearance, complete with clicks and whistles. But after a brief, "What the hell is that?" when they pulled him out from a blanket, that was the last you saw of him.
The introduction of Hades (Ralph Fiennes) was really aggravating to me. His voice was gratingly irritating and if they insisted on having a Hades element, the character should have been infinitely more foreboding and menacing.
Overall, I am disappointed in the revised flick. I can understand a little tweaking in the storyline, but it was almost an entirely different story all together and purists will be be displeased. If they could have better matched the new cast with the old cast, kept the original storyline with only minor tweaks, and used today's graphic technology...the film would have been awesome. These makers of this film bastardized a classic.