Clash of the Titans

When I watch a movie, I don't go into the theater expecting anything other than what the movie claims to be. If it's shooting for greatness, I expect greatness, and anything less than that is a let down. On the other hand, if it's intended to be a popcorn flick, chock full of CGI and adrenaline-spiking action scenes, I can sure as hell get behind that.

If you don't know which category Clash of the Titans was aiming for, feel free to take a break from this review and check out the trailer, which for the record is totally badass. Unfortunately, the film itself is not. *gasp*

No, seriously, it's not.

Let me break down to you the basic premise behind Clash of the Titans.

Our hero, Perseus (Sam Worthington), basically has four people in his life. His dad, his mom, his little sister and a pretty woman portrayed by Gemma Arterton, who secretly follows him around his entire life. She is also cursed by the gods and unable to grow old, which sounds pretty sweet, but she assures us it's awful. In addition to this, his family has no blood relation to him, seeing as they found him in a chest in the middle of the ocean when he was a baby. (cool eh?) Despite how generally bleak this sounds, Perseus is as happy as a clam with the way things are. He lives on a small boat with his foster family, catches a couple fish now and then, has the occasional chest pain every time there's a lightening storm, and spends most of his nights gazing off into the night sky while his foster family take up all the room on what appears to be the only bed. He's living the good life.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world starts to catch an attitude with the gods, and everything goes to shit. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) goes all medieval on Perseus' boat one day, sinking it and killing everyone on board, 'cept Perseus of course. Long story short, he finds out he's in fact the demigod son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), and vows to go on a warpath against the Gods to avenge his fallen family.

And just when everything normally starts becoming awesome, in the realm of action-adventure flicks at least, it doesn't.

Perseus refuses to accept his destiny as a demigod (wah wah wah) and basically spends the majority of the movie getting bailed out of sticky situations by his rag-tag group of warriors, who have deemed him their last hope in the struggle against the gods.

Eventually, after witnessing the very timely demise of Gemma Arterton's character, he gets his shit together, puts his big boy pants on, and starts kicking ass. He takes down a couple baddies, saves a princess, rides a flying horse; ya know, the usual. But in the end it all seems rather pointless. Nothing really gets solved, in fact, nothing really happens at all after the first 20 minutes of plot. The movie ends the same way it began. It takes us on a two hour journey just to leave us at the status-quo. The gods still own the humans, Hades still roams the underworld with a limp, and Perseus still has no family.

But wait.

In the very last scene, just before the credits roll, Zeus feels the need to reward his bastard son. "I can't have you living down here all alone," he triumphantly roars, "after all, you are the son of Zeus!"

Finally, some resolution. His journey wasn't for naught. The god of all gods is gonna give Perseus his family back!

Nope.

Utilizing his mighty power, Zeus decides to bring back from the grave, none other than, Gemma Arterton. That's right folks, the very same Gemma Arterton whose character's sole problem in life, was her inability to grow old and die. The very same Gemma Arterton whose character directly interacted with our hero for a grand total of three or four days. Happy endings are for suckers, it's the thought that counts. Fuck Darth Vader, Zeus is officially the worst biological father in the history of American Cinema.

Pointless story, cringe-worthy script, poor CGI and inexplicable lack of character development aside, the movie still doesn't deliver. The action scenes are truly, and I sincerely mean this, boring. The big bad Kraken, aka probably the biggest selling point to the movie, has about 6 minutes of screen time, and is defeated by a severed head without much of a fuss. Demigods be damned, I could have done this shit myself.

I know this review ended up sounding like a book report. On the bright side, at least it was free. I can't say the same for your movie ticket.

Final Verdict - 5/10