What…a Boring Battle

Once upon a time, there were gods, nd there were men.

There also was a heckuva lot of bickering among them, drama that was screened to high camp effect in the 1981’s Harry Hamlin-starring Clash of the Titans, a pretty cult-y swords-and-sandals epic (of sorts) about a group of insolent mortals and the Olympian gods they so offended.

When the news came out that the movie was getting remade, I wasn’t excited – that is, until I heard that the new Clash of the Titans would star Sam Worthington, the new face of the Hollywood blockbuster (Terminator Salvation, Avatar).

The movie, as you may well know, is about the Aussie actor’s Perseus, the Greek demigod who stood up to the gods, the one who said “Enough!” It’s a revenge story, really – born of Zeus (Liam Neeson) but raised as a man, Perseus is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), the vengefully plotting god of the underworld.

Unbeknownst to our hero, a fisherman who longs to know more about his origin, that is the loss that will thrust him onto the path toward fulfilling his destiny, a path that runs through the middle of an ongoing conflict between man and gods. He has nothing left to lose, after all, so he embarks on a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus and unleash hell on earth.

Too bad this path is a long, unexciting one. I mean, poor Perseus: he has to do battle with a bunch of giant scorpion-type beasts – I’m sure they’re called som’in’, but I’m rusty on my Greek mythology – and face off (or rather not) against the slithering, turn-men-to-stone-ing Medusa, and hurry back to town to kill the feared-by-all Kraken…and all I could think of was unamused I felt.

It pains me to say so but Worthington didn’t helping matters. Sure, he looks beyond-H-O-T in a leather skirt, but his Perseus is a little too morose. Yeah, the guy’s oh-so-handsome to look at and in the end that’s fine, fine, fine, but I wanted to connect with him and really root for him. He’s struggling to accept his specialness – I was doing the same over my dwindling South Patch watermelon candy – and yet, he trades his Everyman ’tude for a shiny forged-in-the-skies sword and a fast Pegasus without much reservation.

Instead I found myself hoping they’d put more monsters in front of him to slay. Or for him to get eaten by. I don’t just feel but know that Worthington owes me…and I can think of a couple of ways he can pay me back for my time. If you know what I mean.

More annoying, though, was the fact that this Clash of the Titans was delayed by a week so that Hollywood could 3-Dfy it in the name of the mighty dollar.

Talk about not bringing anything to the table and stealing a few extra bucks from paying moviegoers – so I say see it in 2-D and don’t be fooled by the goods that this one ain’t got.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.