At last night’s opening of the remake of Clash of the Titans, there is a scene of Perseus visiting the three witches who can tell him how to slay Medusa. These witches are blind and share one eye among them, and they are perfectly helpless when Perseus snatches their eye away from them. They are the only characters in this movie who are convincingly drawn, and that’s because the writers must have had a particular sympathy for them. This remake is a typical Hollywood “’project”, in which one producer back in 2002 decided to do another version of the 1981 camp classic, brought on two writers, who were then all deposed by another producer with his writers, who were then further replaced by producer Louis Leterrier and his committee of writers. Leterrier volunteered to fix the movie because the original film had inspired him when he produced The Incredible Hulk.

I always find it helpful to get some of the background to a film before visiting one of these Hollywood blockbusters, and increasingly there is something to be said for movies that are the product of one person’s vision and dictatorial direction. James Cameron’s Avatar, and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy work so well because they are a coherent blend of writing, direction, production values, acting, and commitment. Most Hollywood films don’t work if they rely on the committee method of production from beginning to end.

Clash of the Titans because of its committee origins never promised to deliver a credible film, and it has certainly lived up to its promise. As a special example of how Hollywood projects can be corrupted, this film went through its entire life as a typical two dimensional movie until a few weeks ago, when its distributor Warner Bros. decided to convert it to 3-D after the success of Avatar. The result is a visual disaster. The technicians have managed to make the two or three characters at the center of the screen pop out at you, with everything else in the background out of focus. This is irritating and completely opposite to the seamless use of 3-D in Avatar. The action and fight scenes, which are about 60% of the film, are completely blurred, which makes it impossible to figure out who is fighting whom. I gave up on the 3-D glasses after twenty minutes, and found I got less of a headache if I concentrated on the parts of the screen that were in focus. Also, at our local theater watching the film without the glasses had an advantage because the screen was much brighter, the glasses being particularly dark and lending a dismal pallor to the whole movie.

Special note to Prof. Harold Bloom at Yale: do not go see this movie. Bloom has made a career deriding multiculturalism and the decline of the Western canon with its emphasis on the Greek classics. He would barely recognize the Perseus myth as told to us by such writers as Aeschylus, Apollodorus, or Herodotus. In the myth Perseus is a demigod who has many adventures, among which is his rescue of Andromeda, who is being sacrificed to the sea monster Cetus to appease Poseidon so that he will not destroy her city. Perseus slays the monster, saves Andromeda, and they marry and have seven children in a happily-ever-after type of ending.

In this film, the city of Argos is threatened with extinction by Zeus because humans have declared war on the gods, being tired of their cruelty and imperious ways. Perseus has also sworn to destroy the gods after Hades kills Perseus’s human father, who brought him up in ignorance that Perseus was a demigod actually fathered by Zeus. Perseus joins with the people of Argos in their war against the gods, vowing to kill both Zeus and Hades, and while he is at it, saving Andromeda from the Kraken, a sea monster spawned by Hades and set free by the gods to destroy Argos if they do not offer up Andromeda as a human sacrifice to the Kraken.

This is what you get when a committee writes a script, and when its members think of themselves as the equals of Aeschylus and Herodotus. It gets worse. Perseus refuses to believe he is half god and half man until the beautiful demigod Io reveals herself to him as his special benefactor from his birth, and tells him of his origins as a son of Zeus. Perseus then receives a visitation from Zeus himself, who tells him there is an apartment in Olympus reserved just for him and he should join his family up in the heavens where he belongs. Perseus refuses, saying he would much rather live and die as a man.

At this point Zeus is beginning to realize that his alliance with his brother Hades in their war against the humans is based on trickery. The gods of Olympus are getting progressively weaker as humans withhold their love and sacrifices to them. Hades, on the other hand, is getting stronger because he feeds off human fear, and Zeus has come to see that Hades is really plotting to overthrow him and move up to Olympus where the air is healthier. Zeus is therefore taking a liking to young Perseus and offers him a powerful sword plus the use of Pegasus, a flying horse, which gifts Perseus ultimately accepts in the final battle with Hades and the Kraken.

The only reason Perseus relents and decides to accept the gifts and his demigod powers is because Io is slain by Hades in the climactic scenes, and with her dying breath and something that looks like a wink urges Perseus to use the sword and the flying horse. By this time Perseus also has the head of Medusa in a bag, and is able to turn her visage on to the Kraken, thereby converting it to stone before it can kill Andromeda or destroy Argos.

Normally I don’t like movie reviews which reveal the plot, but I am telling you all this because this is the only part of the plot you can possibly discern through the confused dialogue, most of which is mumbled by the actors. Sam Worthington, who plays Perseus, has no excuse for his mumbling, other than his role calls for him to look petulantly angry throughout the film and act like a truculent teenager. Worthington has made no effort to hide his Australian accent, and this does not help matters. Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades do have perfect excuses for their incoherence. They are wearing such ridiculously long and bushy beards that they can barely get their words out, though one critic has suggested they used these beards to hide their shame at appearing in a movie like this.

It is at this point that Perseus, having saved Andromeda, is ready to ride off with her on Pegasus. Not in this film. Zeus returns and in thanks to Perseus (“I owe you one, kid” would have been a perfect line here), restores Io to life. Perseus therefore rides off with Io, who is old enough to be his mother, and who looks it. Never mind that the movie has had no time to establish any relationship between Perseus and Io, much less a romantic one. Io is made to join Perseus in his humble, fisherman ways rather than as the King of Mycenae.

There is absolutely no doubt that this remake is an unworthy successor to the Clash of the Titans from thirty years ago. That film featured Harry Hamlin as a virile Perseus, in a 1970’s blow-dried hair sort of way. Hamlin had no acting skills whatsoever, which actually worked out rather well because he was completely outclassed on that score by the gods on Olympus. But then, no one could compete with Claire Bloom as Hera, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite, Maggie Smith as Thetis, and most of all Laurence Olivier as Zeus, who could convey more emotion in a raised eyebrow than Hamlin could ever summon up in 90 minutes of film.

What has made the original Clash of the Titans a classic are the special effects by Ray Harryhausen. These effects, such as the fighting skeletons, Medusa as a gigantic snake with writhing snakes in her hair, and the Kraken rising from the ocean, were all done with difficult and tedious stop-motion techniques, and were truly special for their day. Harryhausen was consulted on this remake, but what could he really contribute? Computers are used these days to create such creatures, and we’ve seen these effects time and again. There was nothing very special about the special effects in this remake, and if that was the purpose of creating this film, it was a waste of money.

Warner Bros. did several screen tests of this movie after the 3-D effects were added, and has declared this is going to be a “rousing success.” Certainly our local theater was sold out, though I don’t know why. The audience must have some vague familiarity with the Medusa and the Kraken, and some baby boomers may remember the original with fondness, but most people in the theater could not tell you the difference between Perseus and Pericles. Maybe it is the attraction of 3-D, though I would think after the disappointment of Alice in Wonderland people might have caught on that 3-D is more of a distraction if not done carefully.

Perhaps everyone is starved for some real heroes who can get things done and save the day, even if they are only mythological. Modern audiences aren’t going to care if Perseus marries Andromeda or Io, as long as the Kraken is destroyed before it is too late and all of civilization collapses. That certainly fits the zeitgeist of the times. If that’s your thing, or if you are still fascinated by computer effects, this movie is for you. If you want acting, a semblance of a plot, and special effects which still dazzle, rent the original.