Clash of the Titans

The good news is that Clash of the Titans is a perfect film for boys teetering on the edge of puberty. Of course that means that the rest of the world should avoid this PG-13 mishmash of Greek mythology. A remake of the 1981 film by the same name, this new version uses the same basic plot with a few additions, most notably the substitution of CGI effects for the former film's Ray Harryhausen stop motion.
Our hero, Sam Worthington as Perseus (totally wooden after a great perf in Avatar), discovers he's half-God having been sired by Zeus (Liam Neeson) in a flashback. Zeus has issues with his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) yet agrees to loose forth terror (and the Kraken) on the mortals of Earth as they've gotten slack in their worship. There's a bit of overlap in plot paths if one has seen last month's Percy Jackson, and rightly so as in both movies the Medusa sequences are the most exciting. Some giant scorpions also threaten Perseus but they keep missing him and his men with their ginormous stingers so often that you think they're blind.
The visuals of the film seem at odds with the 3D version which I caught. Shots that aren't wide angle or extreme close-ups look fuzzy and maybe Clash of the Titans will be a learning curve in studios thinking twice before reconfiguring flat films for 3D. The Olympus scenes are boring with Neeson and Fiennes having most of the dialogue while the other Gods just stand around twiddling their thumbs. There is one bright moment, albeit brief, where the owl Bubo from the previous version makes a cameo.