I'm no Classicist Gary but...

So t'other night my housemates and I decide to sit and watch the newest incarnation of Clash of the Titans. I am sad to say I was fairly dissapointed.

I am not a purist who is outraged at the bastardisation of such wonderful epics - I love Ray Harryhausen's creations and Disney's Hercules - but given the plethora of rich source material why was the movie so damn mundane? It had a great sountrack, good visuals and talented cast yet it lacked all joy I usually feel at such sword-and-sandal romps.

My immediate gripe is the blandness of the female characters. Firstly Andromeda was a little insipid. She whinged at her parents' defiance of the gods and then looked mortified when the religious zealot wanted to sacrifice her to appease them, even though she was willing to die for the sake of her people. Noble motives sure but I guess I was expecting a little more gusto from her. Or at least a dignified acceptance of her fate. She was a minor part in the film anyway, but still she irked me.

However, my main issue was with Io. She had the potential to be interesting - as pointed out by my housemate she knew information that our sweet Perseus or his band did not - yet she too was bland. She gets to lead these typically 'male' characters and impart knowledge on them but her doe eyes over the (very) buff Sam Worthington undermines any of this otherworldly knowledge and angsty back-story. This sadly makes her like most female characters boring and fairly unforgettable. I am not saying I'd be able to resist those wonderful biceps (I'm not a robot), but have some bloody self respect. As for the ending I died a little inside due to its mawkishly saccharine sentimentality.

Moving onto the men of the film, it was very difficult to empathise or even care about their plights. The main group accompanying Perseus lacked any real depth. Brief glimspes into their back-stories provide moments of compassion and understanding, but still not enough to make me feel anything when they died. The monster hunters were pretty nifty but they kinda felt like the token 'interesting' characters, yet they weren't given any real back story other than "we hunt monsters" and were neat little plot device to aid the hero in the end battle. In my not so humble opinion if there was extra time devoted to the adventuring party then as a viewer I could have become more emotionally invested in them. The closest I came to caring was during the fight with Medusa, which in all fairness was a pretty good fight and she looked awesome.

I also think that if I hadn't been expecting to enjoy it so much I may have taken it more for what it was - a visually joyful yet mediocre sword-and-sandal romp.

(Whilst writing this post I have been rekindling my love of the Green Day album Nimrod, that is all).