CLASH OF THE TITANS

Clash Of The Titans is a remake of sorts of the 1981 schlock-fest starring Harry Hamlin. In the reboot, Harry Hamlin's role as Perseus, who's the demigod son of Zeus for all you Greek mythology fans out there, is played by Sam Worthington. As in the original, Perseus fulfills his destiny as the savior of mankind when Zeus's brother Hades, who's the lord of the underworld (again, for all you Greek myth fans out there), along with his creation the almighty sea monster the Kraken is let loose upon the world by Zeus--played in the reboot by Liam Neeson (and played in the original by Laurence Olivier)--as a punishment for mankind's disobedience and/or wickedness. Aiding the almighty Perseus with his quest is a group of human soldiers and "lo" who's a fellow demigod (or whatever the hell she actually is) and, of course, his winged horse Pegasus. This film reminds me of the old Sinbad films I watched when I was a kid. Of course, there was no CGI back then and films resorted to using stop motion animation, which was most notably done by stop motion master Ray Harryhausen who also worked on the original Clash Of The Titans, which, as it turned out, was the last major film he worked on. Of course, moviegoers can make up their own minds whether or not they prefer stop motion to CGI (though I myself find stop motion to be more realistic-looking than CGI, but then, that's just me). One of Ray's creations in the original COTT who makes a brief--and rather amusing--cameo in the remake is the mechanical owl Bubo (who is not part of Greek mythology, at least not the mechanical version, for those of you not in the know). Both the original and the remake are both pretty good films, especially if you're like me and you enjoy watching these types of films, though the remake lacks the noticeable camp of the original (and, again, moviegoers can decide for themselves if that's a good or bad thing, all right?). A sidenote: Ray Harryhausen was actually accused of ripping off noted beloved Star Wars robot R2-D2 for Bubo. Ray not only strongly denied this but claimed that he came up with the idea for Bubo before Star Wars even came out. There again, filmgoers can make up their own minds if they think Bubo was a blatant rip-off of R2-D2. I myself don't see it, but, there again, that's just me!