CLASH! A-AHHH! He saved every one of us!

Because I’m cheap, and, and because I don’t presuppose about movies (especially when it comes to remakes), I took my children off to see the remake of Clash of the Titans.  My kids haven’t seen the 1981 original, and I haven’t seen it in several years.  As with most things I liked when I was a child, I’m afraid to catch up, lest my adult sensibilities tell me that I was in love with total crap when I was a kid.  Nostalgia can kiss my ass!  Anyways, have a look at my thoughts concerning the new Clash of the Titans after the jump.

First, the good.  There’s plenty of action here, as though the makers had a look at most of the sword and sandal movies of the last ten years and asked what the problem was.  Well, they tend to drag in the middle.  Also, I hate to say this as a plus, but since I’ve said it before, I’ll say it here.  Sam Worthington is a terrible actor.  Just awful.  However, he’s tolerable here.  Mostly because they don’t give him a lot to say, and plenty to do.  He’s also supported by a decent cast of James Bond castoffs.  Seriously…look it up!  Including Gemma Arterton, the six fingered freak herself (Seriously!  LOOK IT UP!).  Also in the good category for me is that this remake comes off as some strange mixture of Excalibur, Krull, Star Wars, and the original Clash.  There’s even a Chewbacca/Cyclops creature!  Hey, I like all those other movies, and there’s nothing that says I can’t like a combination of these things.  Plus, in this movie, when they say “UNLEASH THE KRAKEN!”, they fucking mean it!  This thing is monstrously huge, as it should be!  I guess when they thought about upstaging the original Kraken, they only thing they could think to do was to just make the damn thing bigger.  It works!

What doesn’t work in this movie?  Well, I love Ralph Fiennes.  I love him!  But here, he just falls flat.  It’s as if after channeling all his bad for playing Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise, he can’t come up with enough evil to play the god of it, Hades.  Plus, you could have made this entire movie without the inclusion of anything happening on Olympus at all.  They just don’t give it enough credence in the film.  Which is a shame, when you have Liam Neeson playing the father of the gods, Zeus.  Also, what the hell was Alexa Davalos doing in this movie?  Maybe it’s just me, but I like my eye candy (and that’s what she is here) to have a little more meat in her seat.  What?  Is that too sexist for you?  Oh, I’m sorry…why don’t you go get me a beer after you fix me dinner, and then I’ll apologize.  Sincerely, for all you know.

The final verdict?  Well, I can say this for it.  It’s one hell of a lot of fun.  People get stabbied real goodied, and I can always appreciate that.  Go see it, buy yourself some popcorn, and stop whining that one of your favorite childhood memories is being raped.  It’s not true.  The sad, simple truth about the original Clash of the Titans is that it simply isn’t that good, so they haven’t really ruined anything, let alone your nostalgic memories of childhood.  So grow up and get to the theater already!