Fridae

I remember watching the original Clash of the Titans as a pre-schooler and then running around half-naked with a towel wrapped around my shoulder and waist for weeks after, hacking at imaginary gorgons and krakens and holding up a durian triumphantly in lieu of Medusa’s head. It was fun and it was silly. But it was good.

The film had not aged well: the opening minute or so, with its overwrought atmospherics, felt like a Monty Python parody. The kraken looked like a cross between the tokusatsu Godzilla and the creature from The Creature from Black Lagoon. Yes, the sad fact is that no one will tell you how campy the stop motion original picture was, and how much in need of a remake it needs. The cruel joke is that even in 1981, the Ray Harryhausen film was a fossil utilising dated technology such as stop-motion fantasy and science fiction movies from three decades ago.

Hence, I suggest that remake should be seen in the light of its predecessor and compared to the recent Greek/mythological revival in Hollywood cinema. Strictly speaking, I’m only interested in how the special effects would come together (please, no more jerky stop motion, hand-drawn Pegasus wings, and scale models of cities!), the design of the mythological monsters, and the action sequences – in other words, the visual appeal is highly critical for this film.

In this regard, I am relieved to say that this film doesn’t fail to entertain or mesmerise when it should. Designs and animation for the scorpions, Medusa, the kraken, the Stygian witches and especially Charon are a marked improvement over the original, and serve as a decent showcase of today’s special effects technology. Like the original, the stumbling block remains the Olympian gods, who still look annoying ineffectual. All is not lost, however, as their dialogue and delivery seems to have improved. Personally, I put it to a change in acting styles since the 1970s.

There are surprises too for fans of the original: visual references from the original movie kept popping up in creative and unexpected ways, so that you can really play party games in the cinema. Overall, the film is a fun and engaging watch – though it could have gone much further given what we’ve seen in 300 in terms of style, and the Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief in terms of revisioning the old myths.