I have an inexplicable love for mythology, even bad… very bad retellings of it.

I feel like I needed to open with some sort of explanation for even watching both Clash of the Titans (2010) and Wrath of the Titans (2012). Because these are not good movies. I admit to having loved the original Clash of the Titans (1981). I was young –  It had some of the last stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen, the man who did all the effects from Jason and the Argonauts (1963), 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), etc. – and, there were some great moments in that film. Admittedly, these great moments are nestled between a lot of terrible acting.

So, there it is, that’s my excuse for even considering watching these films. What did I think? Well, #1 both Clash of the Titans films bastardize a lot of mythology, but frankly, that doesn’t bother me. After all, they’re just stories. People have been reshaping them for hundreds of years in order to make them their own. #2, despite all the money, the 2010 film undermines our concern for the characters by giving us only spectacle. If I did care about a character, it was Hades. A slow moving medusa in the ’81 version draws you in infinitely more than than the lightening swift one in the remake. I don’t have a lot of film-making cred, but I do know that pacing generates tension, and sometimes it’s what you don’t see that is scariest. #3 Thanks for the cameo of Bubo. He was a great device in the first film, but would never have worked twice. All in all, 2010 the remake was watchable if you already knew it wasn’t going to be that good and you just want to spend an evening with your brain off.

Wrath of the titans makes me with that the the world did end in 2012 so I would have died without watching this crap. What the hell was it supposed to be? A buddy movie? Zeus and Hades test their filial bonds over a power struggle and learn that they always did love each other deep in their hearts? Ares and Perseus learn that being half brothers isn’t quite good enough to not want to bash each other’s heads in? And am I supposed to know this bastard whelp of Poseidon? This film fails on so many levels. #1 Everything that was wrong with the 2010 film was more wrong here. #2 this film actually tries to make us care about the characters that they spend about 17 seconds developing. If you budget for special effects and just assume the script will write itself as you film, then don’t even try to have dialog. Just have 90 minutes of action and let us go on our way.

Awesome. Clash of the Titans 3: Revenge of the Titans is in development.