Clash of the Titans

If we clear away the nostalgic haze, it has to be acknowledged that the original Clash of the Titans was a bit naff, best remembered as the last hurrah for Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures and an irritating robotic owl. The 2010 versions comes all CGi-ed up with lots of room for improvement then.

Unfortunately, it starts off badly - overly-earnest acting, overly-portentous script, visual effects that don't really work. Then there comes a point about 20-30 minutes in, just as Perseus is setting off on his quest, that somebody remembers this could be fun. The film from there on varies between the two extremes. Some fun moments, some heavy-handed dreadfulness. Take the Gods - as Hades, Ralph Fiennes enjoyably hams it up to great effect, Liam Neeson's Zeus is far too po-faced and earnest. Similarly with visual effects - the fight against the medusa works well as does Charon, the giant scorpions are fun too, the kraken itself less well-realised, whilst Neeson in shining armour looks like he's escaped from a bad 80s rock video.

As a leading man, Worthington is far less convincing here than he was in Avatar and his Aussie accent and shaved heard jar visually and aurally with those about him. There are some good supporting turns (Jason Flemyng and Mads Mikkelson) and Gemma Arterton does an Ok job with the worst lines - she gets all the exposition to do, whilst Nicholas Hoult just looks vaguely bemused by the whole thing.

Verdict - 5.5/10 The good parts don't quite do enough to make up for the weaknesses. It gets an extra half mark for the robot owl reference, which is just about the funniest point of the film (but only if you remember the original).