Damn the movie gods!

Rating: 4/10 (7 July 2013)

In 2010 Avatar had become the highest grossing film in history with 3D ticket sales helping the film make over $2 Billion. 3D became all the rage and many films were post-converted into 3D to cash in. But the remake of Clash of the Titans was the first out the blocks and it became the post child for bad 3D post-conversions.
In ancient Greece the Gods are losing their power as humans no longer pray to them and start to rebel against their creators. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) makes a powerplay on Mount Olympus by telling his brother Zeus (Liam Neeson) to make an example of the kingdom of Argos, forcing them to either make a human sacrifice or face destruction from the Kraken. But during Hades' lush for destruction Perseus (Sam Worthington), a demi-God living life as a human, loses his family and ends up promising to help Argos to defeat the Kraken. Perseus goes on a quest to find the weapon to destruction the Kraken with a troop of soldiers, including leader Draco (Mads Mikkelsen) and Io (Gemma Arterton), a woman cursed with immortality.
I have only seen the 2D version of Clash of the Titans (2010), so I can only judge it purely as a film, not for its 3D effects. As a remake of the 1981 version it is inferior. The only improvements are the structure of the film where its narrative was more traditional compared to the original being a series of events, the band of soldiers were better defined and the remake Bubo the owl no more then a cameo.
Director Louis Leterrier came from an action background and he certainly handles action and special effects well enough. The best sequences were when the deformed Calibos (Jason Flemyng) shows up, ripping a man in half and splitting blood (surprisingly violence for a PG-13 film) and the battle with the giant scorpions. Leterrier does know how to stage the sequences, but he did have a tendency to use slo-mo which is his style. He also liked to use overblown CGI sequences, such as when someone throws a coin into the River Styx. Leterrier's eye was also not grand enough for the film he did not success he with the film's setting being more grounded: he is much more suited to modern set stories.
Clash of the Titans embarks on different tones, sometimes it was very serious, other times felt very campy. There were times when it wanted to serious, almost Lord of the Rings likes with its ideas that the Gods needed humans and their relationship to each other and there are dark moments, such as the death of Perseus' family: but the writing wasn't strong enough to back it up. Added to that there were some really bad moments like the origins of Calibos was so cheesy and overblown with him getting stuck by lightning and lifting an idea from Excalibur. And despite the attempts of a serious tone for the most part the film felt the need to add two comic relief hunter characters who felt like they steps out of The Scorpion King.
Whilst the troops had more character then in the original film many of the other characters were unwritten. This is clear with the Gods and Andromeda was barely in the film. Calibos too was much better handled in the original then he was in the remake: it was a waste of Jason Flemyng. Clash of the Titans was also filled with Deus Ex Machinas, such as a race of desert sorcerers known as Djinn who stop and tame the scorpions to the sudden taming of a Pegasus.
The casting was poor. Worthington was given a lot of stick for the role and he was stiff: but he was miscast and the role should have gone to an actor in his early to mid-20s. Many of the other actors like Neeson and Mikkelsen seen to accept their roles for the paycheque and Fiennes was basically playing Lord Voldermort again.
Clash of the Titans was a disappointment because there was potential: it was a film that was in need of a good re-write and flesh out its ideas and characters. I feel there is a place in for films based on Greek mythology due to the vase source material and filmmakers can go from Lord of the Rings style seriousness to a Pirates of the Caribbean like romp. Sadly Clash of the Titans does not fill that void.