CLash of the Titans

Comparison to the original 'Clash of the Titans' will be inevitable as it is one of the most beloved movie classics to be released in the 80's. Given the technological deficiencies back then, the original 'Clash' is a masterpiece collaboration of great (yet simple) storytelling and innovative stop-motion effects by the late Ray Harryhausen.

So when Warner Bros decided to do a remake, expectations will naturally be high. But the greater the hopes the bigger the disappointment. It is not just that the new 'Clash' was poor compared to the old version, but by itself it was a messy piece of cinematic production that neither has much direction or story to compel the audiences. Several rewrites are made but I feel it is done just to differentiate itself from the original version, without adding much sense to the plot. Sam Worthington play Perseus, only this time his character is much darker as he attempts to seek revenge against Hades for murdering his foster family. Interesting when you analyse how a person can actually contemplate killing a God???

The new story drags itself in the 1st 15-20 mins as it attempts to set the mood and pace of the story, but amazingly once it does that the director abandons it for an orgy of monster mishmash special effects. There is absolutely no development of the story, just poorly edited scenes to indicate the progression of the quest that Perseus and the company takes. The director did try to flesh out certain characters in the story but the attempts does not seem to create any significant linkage to the story and was again dropped halfway. At least the original 'Clash' understood that the extra soldiers are there for 'sport' by the monsters and thus did not even bother with it.

One of the main highlights that had people talking about 'Clash' was the Medusa scene. The original was a brilliant combination of mood, sound, eerie music and clever editing, it had people talking about that scene even before audiences watched it. Advances in special effects really does overkill the magic of storytelling. There is no tension or atmosphere to the new Medusa scene, like many of the scenes in the new 'Clash' it was rushed and overshown killing any sense of fear and anticipation. The other scene stealer was obviously the Kraken. Why the new 'Clash' failed again here, is in the original the Kraken appeared early on in the show as it destroyed a major Greece city as punishment by the Gods. It told audiences that the Kraken is one mean mother and the carnage it can unleash is Godlike. In the new 'Clash', the Kraken appeared only at the end of the movie, though it did a good job in scaling it to be the colossal beasts it was supposed to be sadly it was 'turned to stone' before it could lay even the slightest damage to the City of Argos it was summoned to destroy. What a lamer!

With enough bad comparisons to the old version, enough is said to show how great my disappointment at the new 'Clash' movie is. Not surprisingly as a feature film released in March, it obviously had a lesser budget compared to the upcoming summer release movies. Maybe studio executives hoped that the title of the movie would conjure enough nostalgic affections for audiences to pack the theaters once again, thus compromised all storytelling concerns hoping to rake in a quick profit. And from what I have seen in 'Clash' it certainly proves to be the case.