I rewatched the old, original Clash of the Titans recently, but then I saw that Netflix had the 2010 remake right now. While I am not a huge fan of the original Clash of the Titans, I do have some remake rules for myself. A remake is preferable when the original is not considered a “classic” and it must somehow justify its own existence.
Does the 2010 version do either of those things? Well, arguably, the old one is considered a classic by many. Not me, but many. And the movie does try, very hard, to justify its own existence. But I wouldn’t say it quite succeeds.
So, what does this movie do? Well, it seems to be aiming towards if not atheism, than at least anti-theism. The major theme of this movie seems to be the Greek gods are a bunch of dicks that don’t deserve anyone’s worship. In fact, most of the gods, including notably Liam Neeson’s Zeus, are growing weaker due to a lack of prayers. The one exception is Ralph Fiennes’ Hades. But he has other plans and other ways of gaining or maintaining power.
Into this comes Perseus (Sam Worthington). He has a grudge against the gods after Hades murdered his adopted family for the crime of witnessing some soldiers tear down a statue of Zeus and the associated punishment that goes with it. Worthington popped up in the lead role for a few movies back then because James Cameron cast the man in the lead role for Avatar. Unfortunately, Worthington isn’t exactly a charismatic leading man. He can say his lines, but he’s surrounded by better actors like Neeson, Fiennes, Pete Postlethwaite, Elizabeth McGovern, Mads Mikkelson, Danny Huston, Alexander Siddig, Luke Evans, Gemma Arteton, Nicholas Hoult, and Liam Cunnnigham.
You know, Mikkelson is too old for the role, but he made a pretty convincing anti-theist badass. I can’t help but think this movie would be so much better with him as Perseus.
Along with Hades as the main villain, the movie also seems to be going more hard-core action movie than the light-hearted fantasy film the original one. The previous movie showed respect to Greek myth, and the scenes on Olympus showed a more female pantheon, with Zeus alone getting any significant lines or scenes. The remake prefers male gods. Hades doesn’t appear at all, and here he’s played as basically Satan. Nothing symbolizes how little respect the remake has for the tone of the original than when Perseus finds the mechanical owl Bubo and someone tells him to put it back where he found it and forget about the goofy thing.
By the by, the Greeks didn’t see Hades as evil. Author Jim Butcher got that detail right in one of his Dresden Files novels and I have always appreciated that, particularly since so much of pop culture equates Hades with the Christian devil.
Much the rest of the movie plays out like a typical mid-budget-ranged action movie. CGI creatures fly around like video game characters. Action scenes toss everything at the viewer and make it hard to follow, and characters only have as much personality as their actors can give them. The end result is basically an at-best so-so movie with a clever idea here or there that seems more inclined to look cool than actually be cool.
Grade: C-
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