Clash of the Titans 2010 (2010)
Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Pete Postlethwaite, Mads Mikkelson, Nicholas Hoult, Jason Flemyng, Alexa Davalos
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Rating: 
Ever get the feeling you've been had?
Last night, we paid a premium price to watch a perfectly decent, throwaway Saturday night movie though darkened spectacles that dulled the colours, muddied the action and nipped the side of the head.
3D? I didn't see any 3D (okay, at one point a spear was thrown at me). All I saw was your typical summer special effects action fare ruined by studio greed.
Clash of the Titans 2010 pits the A list gods of Olympus (Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, both texting their performances in from the poolside) against the vaguely familiar faces of the mortals of Argos. The people of this Grecian city (which bears a striking resemblance to HBO's idea of Rome, all crowded dusty streets and decadent palaces packed with busty beauties draped in gold cloth) have set themselves against the gods and the gods are not happy.
To punish their hubris, Voldemort, sorry, Hades vows to release the legendary beast the Kraken, which will destroy the city unless the king sacrifices his only daughter, Andromeda.
Step up our hero, Sam Worthington, woefully miscast as Perseus, looking less the golden youth of myth and more the grizzled army veteran of, hmm, a sci-fi movies set on a planet peopled by blue warriors, who vows to destroy the monster.
Cue a series of random adventures primarily designed to fuel the video game spin-offs, as Perseus and a misfit crew of soldiers and hunters (including Mads Mikkelson, clearly pretending he's in a much better movie than this one, and that chap from Skins) battle giant scorpions, seek out the Stygian Witches and take on the gorgon Medusa, all of which would be much more fun if I wasn't watching the generally impressive CGI action through sunglasses in the dark.
Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh. True, it lacks the hokey charm of the original film of 1981, with its wonderfully imaginative and, for the time, really quite brilliant stop motion animation effects by Ray Harryhausen; as usual for this kind of movie, the script sounds as if it were scribbled down on the back of a fag packet during someone's lunch break, and it's hard to empathises with any of the cardboard cut out characters. However, once it gets going it's entertaining enough, a rollicking ride through cod Greek mythology (by way of Pirates of the Caribbean – as our heroes journey down to the Underworld, I keep expecting Captain Jack Sparrow to swagger into view, savvy), Pegasus is nicely brought to life and there's plenty of eye candy on offer too, if you like young men in skirts.
But if this is the way that cinema is going, then the high heidyins of Hollywood may find they have their own titanic clash on their hands, as we mere mortals rise up in protest and start voting with our feet. Regurgitating older movies as cinematic computer games is one thing, but imposing ruinous 3D on top then charging more for a ticket is a step too far.
So who's up for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 2, in tast-o-vision…?
