Remember Clash of the Titans?

I went to see Clash of the Titans yesterday. In 3D! I wish I could remember it. I think I enjoyed it.

Still, I have less of a memory of the original. It went something like this:

Maybe it’s an age thing (mine, not yours) but I always thought of it as the poor bastard offspring of Jason and the Argonauts. Sure, a flying horse is a good thing, but can it really compete with sword-fighting skeletons?

Anyways, it’s not a story that’s stuck in my head, and so I find myself laughing at lines such as:

Who did this?

Soldiers from Argos.

Like Big Brother and Room 101, now reduced to TV formats, Argos will always make me think of the shop where everything is hidden. Soldiers from Argos… perhaps like this.

So, these soldiers from Argos knock over a statue of Zeus. Zeus, unhappy, gets his bad brother Hades to wreak some vengeance. But Perseus is having none of it. He’s a Demi-God. Not, as I was hoping, some kind of transsexual GI Jane type, but rather the son of Zeus and some earthly mother who Zeus shagged to get back at some king or other (these gods are petty and silly things). See, he came to Earth as a big bird… Oh, it’s really to daft to explain.

Then Zeus says “release the kraken”, and that’s a bad thing. But Perseus (who really should, by now, be a car, or a washing up liquid, or a mobile phone) can kill the Kraken if he goes to the Underworld (not, sadly, the knicker factory in Coronation Street) and chops the head of the Medusa (not a team from The Apprentice) and waves her snakey face in front of the Kraken (destined to become a rice crispy based snack bar- a cake bar even).

And he does and it’s all fine and there’ll be a sequel.

I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt it for you. If it is any consolation, I may have got it all wrong.

There’s a trend for reimaginings. For remaking classics (and Clash of the Titans) and putting a new dark spin on them. They call it Reinvigorpeating. They being me. But this Clash of the Titans has decided to buck the trend. It tries; Perseus calls Medusa a bitch, and the clockwork bird from the first go gets short shrift. Oh, and Pegasus is black now. But that’s it. the rest is just daft camp nonsense.

It’s directed by Louis Letterier. Or, as I prefer to think of him, Louis the Terrier. I imagine him snapping at the heels of Ralph Fiennes as Hades, barking “madder, more like Richard III, and croaky like a wheezy frog”.

Then there’s the baddy from Casino Royale. I’ll look his name up in a minute, but hazarding a guess I’ll go for Mick McManus.

Close. It’s Mads Mikkelsen. Cripes, he’s beefed up. He looks like a mad bad plastic surgeon’s attempt at blending together The Rock, Lance Henrikson and William Fichtner. Another beefed up actor I like to see is Liam Cunningham. One day he will play Elvis Costello in the Elvis Costello biopic, My Aim is True. I imagine.

This is no 300. It’s not even a Troy. But it is fun. I think. I’m trying to remember.

Release the Kraken! Limited edition with vinyl roof and alloy wheels.

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