Clash of the Titans

Rated: PG-13 (for fantasy action violence, some frightening images and brief sensuality).

“Clash of the Titans” is a remake of another “Clash of the Titans,” made in 1981, starring pretty boy Harry Hamlin and a previous generation’s pretty boy, Laurence Olivier. It was pure camp. This new version is campy but allegedly with better special effects. But to me the effects are not so “special.” The 1981 version was stop-action photography. This version is 3-D, but the original screenwriters are still the same: some Greek guys that have been dead a couple of millennia.

You may remember the plot. A baby is found by a fisherman in a coffin with his dead mother’s body. The fisherman and his wife call the boy Perseus (Sam Worthington). He loves his adoptive mother, father, and step sister. One day, the Greeks topple the statue of Zeus and declare war on the gods because they have been cruel to humankind. Many flying minions jump out of the sea, kill the blasphemous soldiers, and then smash Perseus’s family’s fishing vessel and drown all but Perseus.

Now, Perseus is hacked off at the gods. Soon, he discovers he is the illegitimate son of Zeus — Zeus having the morals of a tomcat. Now this gives Perseus some serious daddy issues.

Zeus’s brother is Hades (Ralph Fiennes). He convinces Zeus to allow him to wreak havoc on the humans so they will stop their rebellion against the gods and start praying. Zeus grants permission and causes all kinds of grief. However, Hades is mad at Zeus for tricking him into going to the Underworld. Both Zeus and Hades have family issues.

Perseus goes on a campaign against the gods…and his adventures are before him: his destiny with Medusa, the giant lizard-like Kraken, and three witches with one eye. Surely you remember all this from high school or, at least, umpteen movies before this one.

This “Clash of the Titans” is, in some places, very odd indeed.

The wigs and beards on these actors are about as impressive as the cheap Halloween costumes on the dollar table at Big Lots. If the characters didn’t look like Rasputin, they looked like the cast of “300.” The monsters, frankly, look no better than the stop-action beasties three decades ago.

And then there are scenes that have that creepy semi-sexuality of a Cecil B. DeMille film. When the King’s daughter, Andromeda, is about to be sacrificed by the rabble, she is strung up over these Greek cliffs, making a tasty treat for the Kraken. Here is where I thought I saw this before in a silent film…or was it one of DeMille’s biblical cinematic tales…or was it King Kong and Fay Wray? Not very impressive. And I thought I had seen Mt. Olympus before. It looked like a set from TV’s “Star Trek;” all that was missing was William Shatner and some sequin-bedecked vixens.

The trouble with the 2010 version of “Clash of the Titans” is that it isn’t cheesy or campy enough. It is caught between two worlds: the world of the Gee-Wiz and the world of This-Is-So-Bad-It-Is-Good. The latter is possible; the former is, so far, impossible.

My problem is that I saw two movies in the same day: “Clash of the Titans” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” an animated feature in 3D. “How to Train Your Dragon” was so incredible good, that in comparison, “Clash of the Titans” was a drag.

I never really liked Greek Myths. I almost failed that unit in Literature Class, it bored me so. Funny thing: I have never seen a filmed depiction that intrigued me either…or changed my mind about the stories. Filmed depictions always seemed wacky; as if it were part of some elaborate joke, a wink and a nudge in the ribs.

Perhaps I am just hard to please or I just don’t believe in Zeus and his pack of rascals.

“Clash of the Titans” gets only two bow ties out of five.