Cool to look at, but that's about it

Rating: 7/10 (3 August 2010)

In the old days of Hollywood, the spectacle was a grand, rousing story filled with enormous battles, a dastardly villain and a hero that everyone could get behind. Nowadays, it's grand and enormous, but it fails to really be rousing and draw us into the story because there's no one to really care about.
"Clash of the Titans" takes place in a time of gods and man, of heroes and myths. Zeus (Liam Neeson) created man so their continued prayers could give the gods immortality. The problem is that the gods are screwing the humans over, and they're sick of it. When the citizens of Argos destroy a statue of Zeus, Zeus allows his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to get the humans respecting them again by any means he sees fit. Hades gives the King of Argos an ultimatum: either sacrifice his daughter Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), or have his city destroyed by the Kraken. But while Hades has his own plans set it motion, the gods watch nervously as Perseus (Sam Worthington), the mortal son of Zeus, journeys to find a way to defeat the Kraken and save both Argos and Andromeda.
The film, an update of the notoriously cheesy 1981 original, is loaded with special effects. For that part of the film, it works. Visually, the film is meticulously detailed and always cool to look at. Even better is the fact that we can actually see the action scenes. Louis Leterrier does not use the shaky cam to obscure what happens in the fight scenes, and apart from a few minor missteps in the beginning, the action scenes are clear and easy to follow.
Unfortunately, the acting department is where it fails. It's not that the actors are bad, it's just they're all the same: gruff, growly and brooding. Had there been a little time for character development, this could have been a worthy successor to "Lord of the Rings" (in fact, there are scenes where it is trying to be). Alas, it's just all glitz and flashy visuals.
Maybe it's just me, but I think if a human being is ripped in half or decapitated (regardless of the amount of blood shown), I think that deserves an automatic R rating. Had the roughly 10 seconds of footage been edited out or redone, this would be a bona-fide PG-13 movie. But as it is, it should have been rated R. Likewise, the images of some of the breasted creatures were covered up, despite being uncovered in the drawings from Ancient Greece. Go figure.
My rating: rated R for fantasy action/violence throughout including some intense images, and brief language.