The newly remade “Clash of the Titans” is what happens when a couple Hollywood producers are convinced a three thousand-year-old legend could use a little punch-up. Ooh, yeah, maybe that’s what’s the problem - everyone’s mad at the gods, and they’re mad right back. Hades has threatened to destroy the city of Argos by unleashing the Kraken unless the city offers its princess as a sacrifice, and Perseus, though mistrusted by the humans because of his godly parentage, leads a small band intent on destroying the Kraken and sending Hades back to the underworld. Because, you see, if the filmmaking and 3D effects aren’t anything like those in “Avatar,” other things, alas, are. (It doesn’t help that director Louis Leterrier - who made “The Incredible Hulk” and “Unleashed,” so we know he can deliver when necessary - makes most of the action sequences so frenetic and poorly staged that we can never really tell what’s going on, to whom, and where. Alas, this also leads to the drowning death of a kindly fisherman (Pete Postlethwaite) and his family - but not their adopted son, Perseus (Sam Worthington, inexplicably wearing his “Avatar” crew cut and only bothering to hide is Aussie accent in half the scenes), who’s revealed to be the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson). Eventually they ride off, encountering giant scorpions and wicked monsters and strange genies made of wood (yes, really), and every single time, Perseus does nothing; it’s his cohorts who save the day. Now back to the remake!”) The plot carries our heroes from point to point and monster to monster, but there’s no rhythm to it, no appreciation for the story as a whole, no purpose to the adventure besides getting us to the next hollow set piece. Nobody involved with Clash Of The Titans seems to have cared about the film...and - by the Gods!
– In Clash Sam Worthington plays a half mortal hopelessly in love and stuck between two worlds. Sound familiar? This remake aims for Avatar, but falls short. Though it has expensive effects (3D!) and stars (Ralph Fiennes!), it even falls short of the cheerfully cheesy original. This movie manages to make Avatar's plot look sophisticated, writes Dana Stevens on Slate. "Compared with this witless, chaotic mess of a movie, James Cameron's epic looks worthy of the ancient Greek authors." Peter Sobczynski of eFilmCritic says Clash "not only amplifies all of the flaws of the original but even screws up the things that it actually got right the first time around." "It's big, it's loud, and it's filled with meaningless action," says FILMINK's Erin Free. The film "pretty much sums up with what's wrong with Hollywood right now." Ralph Fiennes, does fine, says the Oregonian's Shawn Levy. Worthington, however, projects "the charisma of the young Russell Crowe's lighting double."