Pretty joyless...

Rating: 4/10 (1 April 2010)

This remake of the starry-eyed 1981 Greek mythological fantasy adventure has a grungy, ugly look and a completely joyless opening quarter of an hour. Sam Worthington's blokey performance as Perseus turns out to be roughly interchangeable with the performances he gave in both Avatar and the last Terminator film, though Clash has next to no character development on the cards for Sam or any of its other actors. What little humour there is comes in the form of cynical one-liners from one of Perseus's bearded mates. The film is mostly a series of grunty fight scenes involving sandaled humans versus giant CGI monsters – giant scorpions, giant medusa, giant kraken, etc.
One of the heroes of the original Clash was a cute clockwork golden owl named Bubo. When trailers for the new Clash were screening, my friend and I joked about whether Bubo would make the remake. I said, "there's no way they're going to have a cute robot owl. This film looks way too grungy and they're playing heavy metal music on the trailer."
To all our surprises, Bubo did appear, albeit for ten seconds. Just before Perseus sets out on his adventure, he is digging around in a supply chest when he pulls out... Bubo, looking and sounding exactly like the little blighter did in 1981. This caused me to cry aloud: "Oh my God!"
Perseus considers the owl briefly and says something like, "What the hell is this?" His bearded one-linery friend responds with, "Don't worry about it, just leave it here." Then they shove the owl back in the box and go adventuring. In retrospect this was the wittiest moment in the whole film, even if it only made sense to people who knew the original. If you had been wondering if the owl would reappear, this scene both satisfied your desire to see the owl again and then reassured you that, "Okay, that's the owl issue dealt with, so no, the owl won't be in the film in general, and now you can stop worrying about it."
The basic strike against the new film, which amounts to 1000 strikes, is that not a single aspect of it is developed in any satisfying way. Dialogue is absolute nuts and bolts stuff to propel the simple plot. The people in the film aren't moved when their pals are killed, so you aren't either. There's a cast of gods in Olympus, but 80% of them stand in the background saying nothing, etc. etc.
The new Princess Andromeda is dull as dishwater in a cut down role (but I was kind of in love with Judi Bowker of the original film, so I am biased). The principal female role now belongs to lovely Gemma Arterton as Io, the ageless half human, uh, toga'd spirit type woman.(?) If I thought anyone would ever say anything remotely poetic in this film, I'd have put money on her character saying it. But nobody does and she didn't.
The old Clash of the Titans was extraordinary with romance, G rated magic and beautiful scenery, no matter how naff some of it was. The new one is ugly and weak, brisk and dumb. I think it's safe to say that no kid who is seven years old now will be looking back on this film with any fondness in thirty years' time.