Morally ambiguous "heroes", vengeful gods, dark tales of war and tragedy - you can't go wrong with Greek mythology! Or so I thought, as I waited for Clash of The Titans, a remake of a 1980's Greek adventure film, to start projecting onto the theater screen. What I expected was a fun little popcorn movie with some cool Greek mythology twists to go with it. What I got, however, was an incredibly stupid film with horrible dialogue, a bad, boring pace, and insanely stupid characters.

In the film, we follow the plight of the demi-god, Perseus. Son to a mortal woman and an Olympian god, Perseus was left for dead when he, along with his dead mother, were thrown into the open ocean in a closed casket. However, Perseus was soon found and adopted by an elderly fisherman and his wife and raised as if he were one of their own. Things go well for 20-something years, before the small family encounters the massacre of Greek soldiers by Hades, who in turn kills the small family save Perseus. Out for revenge, Perseus goes on an epic quest to find and kill the dreaded Kraken, so that Perseus may finally kill Hades himself.

This concept is all well and good, if it weren't for the fact of how stupid this film is. Normally, I don't mind changes to the mythology as long as the execution is done well (see Hades' portrayal in Disney's Hercules). However, so much is changed in this film that it barely even resembles the epic tale that's adapting. The biggest flaw has to be the fact that the Kraken is from NORSE mythology - not Greek. This can't even be considered a slip-up, as the film presents this creature as being the greatest threat in the film. Next, I don't mind if Hades is portrayed as a Satan-like figure, as execution is what I care more about (again see Hades in Disney's Hercules). However, you know there's a problem when your main villain, who is constantly labeled as the villain, is probably the most relateable character in the film.

I'm dead serious about that fact. Why should we like Perseus? We're never given a reason to like him, he's just described as being justifiable in his vengeance because his family's murderer is evil. Why should we like Zeus, or nay of the gods for that matter? They're weak, they're uncaring, and they do whatever they please, including raping a woman to "prove a point". Hades, on the other hand, did nothing to spurn hatred towards himself. Not only did he follow his brother, Zeus, as he instructed, but he was tricked into ruling the world of the dead by Zeus. Why should I relate to or like a tricky, self-righteous, and glory-raping bastard? Not only that, but Zeus' costume is just a shiny plate of armor. A VERY shiny plate of armor - shiny enough to make Edward Cullen blush.

Nextly, these characters are so incredibly stupid. What do we do if a group of wizard-like beings save our lives from giant scorpions? We kill them, apparently. What do we do if we can't win a fight? We just kill some poor, lonely neutral character because they're cursed. Because, you know, killing some neutral person totally has something to do with killing the main baddie, am I right? Also, I don't care how prideful you are, who refuses the offer of using a sword that was forged by a god? "Oh, I'll never use it because I'M A MAN". He ends up using it anyway. What was the point of not using it? Plot exposition? Good freaking grief. Of course, this nowhere near as bad as the ageless woman who wants to die. She's an immortal, but she can be killed through violence. She states very early on in the film that she wants to die but can't, yet we later see her die via violent means. The question is: why didn't she just kill herself? If she could die through violent means, couldn't she have killed herself? Or gotten someone to kill herself for her? Ridiculous.

Also, if you look carefully enough, you'll see that a lot of this film's creative designs have been stolen from other sources. The general description may be from mythology, no doubt, but the interpretation felt like somebody decided to raid some old costume wardrobe. The witches look EXACTLY like the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth, the god-sword (in its "not-in-use" form) looks like a lightsaber, the Kraken looks the monster from Cloverfield, the river Styx looks the marsh from the second Pirates of The Caribbean movie, etc. It's as if the director couldn't even steal from older movies, he could only steal from more recent ones.

The dialogue's horrendous, and every line just seems to serve to move the plot along. There is no character development here, and the dialogue only serves to get us from "Plot Point A" to "Plot Point B". Not only that, but this lack of interaction and basic human communication just makes the film...boring. Yes, boring has to be the right choice of words because not once in the film was I ever even slightly entertained. I don't know how, but this director was somehow able to make the greatest source material ever boring. How do you make a movie about ancient gods, bloodthirsty revenge, and epic fantasy fight sequences boring? It's just beyond me.

Horrible. This film is just absolutely dreadful. Boring characters, stupid decision-making, stolen designs, and some awful pacing/dialogue make Clash of the Titans an utter failure as a film. I wouldn't even have minded if the film was just a popcorn action flick, at least then it would have gotten some entertainment value. But no, the film's just completely stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.