A potentially great movie with an unworkable premise

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2010)

Contrary to what a few have said I do think that this is a fantastic action movie. The opening scenes with the description of the Titans and gods is spine tingling. The scenes of Olympus are magnificent and any movie dealing with the Greek myths has the potential to be simply mind-blowing.
Bizarrely, however, the script writers and/or director decided to turn it into man vs the gods and gave it an unworkable post-modern twist. These gods who brought down the Titans, built worlds and have vast powers can be weakened if people don't pray to them???!!! Had someone read Terry Pratchett? It doesn't even fit. It was frankly a ludicrous angle to have brought into a movie on Greek mythology. It weakened the story terribly as Perseus became a whining brat who wouldn't use Zeus' gifts and kept saying he would succeed as a man when he is patently a demi-god and therefore could not and would not ever be just a man. Are we really expected to believe that a puny band of humans could defeat the gods of Olympus? And why would they wish to? In Greek mythology Helios was the sun crossing the sky every day - spit in his eye and the sun doesn't rise. In a vain attempt to make humans appear supremely noble and good there are no really bad people in it. This, again, weakens the plot. Even toward the end of the movie Calibos tells Perseus not to be like the gods....so be like Calibos? Murder your wife and attempt to murder a baby? Really? Instead of creating in-depth characters and a strong storyline with layers we were irritatingly lectured on post-modern humanism in a movie based on Greek mythology and truthfully it doesn't work. And so a movie that could have matched some of the greatest fantasy movies slips into mediocrity.