I have only ever seen pieces of the ’80s Clash of the Titans, but my memory of it was that it was actually based on Greek myths. I emphasize this fact because this remake appears to not care about its sources in the slightest, pulling a creature from Norse mythology as its climactic bad guy, bringing in some Arabic mythology, and generally completely altering the stories of the Greek myths it is ostensibly putting on screen. (I recognize that a fine film could be made out of the idea that all myths from all cultures are variations of the same story, but a blockbuster wouldn’t tell that story.) I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. But given that faithfulness to source material in fantasy films is often the prerequisite for success, you’d think these guys might have just tried to tell an accepted variation of the story instead of whatever this is.

There is so little in common between this movie and the story of Perseus but if that was the only problem the film might still be acceptable. However, there are some other problems. Here are but two:

• as others have noted, this film is really just a bunch of action set pieces interspersed with famous (and good!) actors in wigs and funny costumes – is Liam Neeson playing Moses or Zeus???
• every time the filmmakers were worried that we wouldn’t know what was happening, a character says another character’s name – there is so little trust in the audience, that they think they need to tell us who the character is talking about.

But the CGI is good and it’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen.

3/10

• Directed by Louis Leterrier
• Produced by Basil Iwanyk, Kevin De La Noy, Richard D. Zanuck
• Screenplay by Travis Beacham, Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi, Based on Clash of the Titans by Beverley Cross
• Starring:
  • Sam Worthington as Perseus
  • Liam Neeson as Zeus
  • Ralph Fiennes as Hades
  • Gemma Arterton as Io
  • Jason Flemyng as King Acrisius/Calibos
  • Alexa Davalos as Princess Andromeda
  • Mads Mikkelsen as Draco
  • Nicholas Hoult as Eusebios
  • Liam Cunningham as Solon
  • Hans Matheson as Ixas
  • Rory McCann as Belo
  • Luke Evans as Apollo
  • Danny Huston as Poseidon
  • Alexander Siddig as Hermes
  • Agyness Deyn as Aphrodite
  • Pete Postlethwaite as Spyros
  • Elizabeth McGovern as Marmara
  • Luke Treadaway as Prokopion
  • Polly Walker as Queen Cassiopeia
  • Vincent Regan as King Cepheus
  • Kaya Scodelario as Peshet
  • William Houston as Ammon
  • Ian Whyte as Sheikh Sulieman
  • Natalia Vodianova as Medusa
• Music by Ramin Djawadi
• Cinematography by Peter Menzies Jr.
• Edited by Vincent Tabaillon, Martin Walsh
• Production companies: Legendary Pictures, The Zanuck Company, Thunder Road Pictures
• Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
• Release date: April 2, 2010
• Running time: 108 minutes
• Country: United States, Australia
• Language: English
• Budget: $125 million
• Box office: $493.2 million