The world has come a long way since the '80s. Back then, if audiences demanded a monster-movie spectacle, they needed to call on someone like Ray Harryhausen who could whip up the best claymation creatures in the business, such as the beasts he created for 1981's ""Clash of the Titans."" But in 2010, CGI is the nifty new toy for filmmakers to use. Thus we now have Louis Leterrier's remake of ""Clash of the Titans,"" which wields eye-popping special effects so roaring crowds can see a spiffy new Kraken waltz around Greece like an anarchist in Legoland. But sadly, it seems like the Kraken did just as much damage to ""Clash's"" script as well, because the actual story of the movie lies in ruins.
Much of the plot has changed from the original 1981 version of ""Clash,"" but the basic pieces are still around. There are the gods of Olympus, Zeus (Liam Neeson) and Hades (Ralph Fiennes), angry at the insolent human beings for their lack of loyalty. There is the aforementioned Kraken, which is set to destroy the Greek city of Argos as punishment for their insolence if they fail to sacrifice the princess, Andromeda (Alexa Davalos). And finally there is Perseus (Sam Worthington), the half-human son of Zeus and the only one who can save the Greeks from their terrible Kraken-y fate. New to the mix is Io (Gemma Arterton), a combination wisened mentor/love interest to Perseus, and fortunately for the latter role she looks a lot more like Princess Leia than Obi-wan Kenobi.
Also new to this ""Clash"" is a complete mess of action set pieces, random exotic locales and ""Win one for the Gipper""-style inspirational speeches that are sloppily thrown together as an incredibly ineffective delivery system for CGI wonder-gazing. The original ""Titans"" was hardly a masterpiece, but at least it was easy to follow. The same cannot be said for this version, as director Leterrier moves the film along by pulling motivations and plot devices out of his ass. Need to get from the underworld to Argos in 20 minutes? Hop on that flying Pegasus that just randomly appeared. Need to figure out how to kill the Kraken? Just ask Io in her comically skimpy toga, she seems to have the answer to every single question. In ""Clash,"" things don't happen because they are logical, things happen solely because Leterrier wants them to happen. Every solution to every problem requires a suspension of disbelief that would make even the writers of ""24"" blush.
It's a pity, too, because Leterrier wastes some great scenery that his actors would have loved to chew. Neeson and Fiennes as Zeus and Hades is some of the greatest casting this side of the River Styx, not only because it's great to see Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth face off again but because they can take absolutely ridiculous lines like ""Release the Kraken!"" and make them sound sublime. But no, even though Neeson's armor is shinier than a ""Twilight"" vampire, that isn't eye-catching to Leterrier. Acting doesn't have nearly enough CGI in it for him.
In the immortal words of ""The Big Lebowski's"" Walter Sobchak, ""This is not 'Nam, there are rules."" These are words that are lost on Louis Leterrier. Anytime a director takes on a project, he gets to create his own world—but that world needs a set of rules by which it operates. The director can't just create a fantasy land where anything goes. Everything that happens needs to make sense, even if only in the mythical setting they have created.
Leterrier and his trio of lackadaisical screenwriters don't do that in ""Clash of the Titans."" Instead, they trot out deus ex machina after deus ex machina, snapping fingers to fill plot holes just so they can show more carnage. In doing so, Leterrier has just created his own 'Nam, and the result is the same as it was in America's least favorite war: a hellhole.
