Clash of the Titans (2010)

Just watched this Greek mythology-themed action epic, a shameless remake of a film by the same name from the early 80s. It stars Russell Crowe II (aka Sam Worthington) as the heroic demi-god Perseus who goes on a quest to kill the fearsome Kraken (pronounced with that epic-sounding long "a" -- like hearken) -- a feat which, somewhat inconveniently, can only be accomplished by first heading down to Hades and retrieving the head of the Medusa and then using that to turn the Kraken to stone. Of course, I'm just outlining the broad strokes here -- along the way there is much fighting to be done against such nasties as giant scorpions.

Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes ham it up delightfully as deity brothers Zeus and Hades, and recent Bond-girl Gemma Arterton provides some top-shelf eye-candy as the demi-goddess Io.

I haven't seen the original, but it seems a safe bet that the special effects in this one are an awful lot better. Indeed, the special effects are very impressive and, for me, that alone justifies the exercise of remaking the film. We've reached the stage where the most far-fetched nonsense dreamed up by classical Greek imaginations can be rendered vividly and realistically on the big screen.

All in all it's a fairly enjoyable romp through well-trodden fantasy action-epic terrain. As you'd expect, there are a few cringeable bits of Hollywood dialogue (Perseus' "just don't look at that bitch" when he's warning his men about the Medusa was a good example), but it's not as bad on that front as I might have expected.

My one major gripe (other than Sam Worthington's wooden Australian-tinged accent) is with the title of the film: the "Titans" in question have supposedly been defeated by the "Kraaaaaaaaaaken" long before the events in the film and, as far as I could tell, have basically not much to do with anything. I feel obliged to flag this by way of a warning to any purists of Greek mythology: if you go into this one expecting to see Titans clashing, you'll be disappointed. Still, it is a good title, and in any case the fault resides with the makers of the original version.