Entertainment
Liam Neeson and an All-Star Cast Kicked Off the Most Underrated Fantasy Franchise of 2010
In the early 2000s, Hollywood was at a crossroads: Iron Man made nearly $600 million, but 300 made almost $500 million a few years earlier. Was the future of action movies in comic books or in vaguely historical fantasy? Even more confusing was the success of James Cameron’s Avatar, which made infinite money and just had to be the start of a very exciting career for star Sam Worthington. Unfortunately for director Louis Leterrier, his remake of Clash of the Titans managed to bet on almost every wrong horse, despite being a pretty fun movie in its own right.
2010’s Clash of the Titans actually outgrossed 300 worldwide, despite holding just 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and it spawned a sequel in 2012 called Wrath of the Titans. Despite that, both movies feel essentially forgotten today, with none of the cultural sway of Avatar, Iron Man, or 300. (People at least still remember the famous quotes from 300, but when was the last time someone said the famous quote from Clash of the Titans?)
What Happens in ‘Clash of the Titans’?
A remake of the 1981 movie of the same name starring Harry Hamlin and with iconic Ray Harryhausen special effects (love those skeletons), Clash of the Titans is a loose adaptation of the Greek mythological story of Perseus. Sam Worthington plays Perseus, who is the son of Zeus, as he gets stuck in the middle of a war between the gods and the humans. Now, before we get to the rest of the cast, just keep in mind that this is all true: Liam Neeson plays Zeus, Ralph Fiennes plays Hades, Gemma Arterton plays Perseus’ guide Io, Luke Evans plays Apollo, Danny Huston briefly shows up as Poseidon, and Mads Mikkelsen, Liam Cunningham, Nicholas Hoult, and Rory McCann play some of the soldiers accompanying Perseus.
Hades is mad at Zeus for tricking him into ruling the crummy underworld, Zeus is mad at the humans for losing their faith in the gods (and because a human killed his lover and abducted his son), and the humans are mad at everybody because being a human is hard. Everybody starts fighting everybody, and the only hope is Perseus, who can bridge the gap between the gods and the humans by exposing that Hades is the real bad guy. Unfortunately, along the way, Zeus deploys his ultimate weapon: A monster known as the Kraken. Naturally, he releases the Kraken by shouting, “Release the Kraken” — a scene that constantly appeared in the film’s marketing but is actually a little more understated than you might remember.
Why is ‘Clash of the Titans’ Underrated?
It’s less of a clever choice than it was the only possible choice, but Clash of the Titans wisely plays pretty much everything totally straight. It’s all high-stakes melodrama and big, flashy performances, because that’s what fits the material, so if everyone was also winking at it or making little Marvel-y jokes on top of it, the entire thing would deflate and there’d be no weight to any of it. By acting like it’s all really important, the movie doesn’t become good, but it does become fun.
Most of the performances follow this, and the costume design for the gods is pretty cool. They’re all wearing completely over-the-top armor sets like they’re max-level characters in a video game (or like they’re pulled straight out of Saint Seiya). It’s not a secret great movie, but it’s the kind of movie that you can give yourself over to — now that it’s free from the context it came out in — and just enjoy. Even the sequel, which tried to expand on what was good about the first one since there was no classic Clash of the Titans sequel to copy, is the same kind of entertaining nonsense. Unfortunately, by that time, Hollywood had realized that nobody wanted Greek mythology epics and Sam Worthington. They wanted superhero epics and literally anyone but Sam Worthington.
- Release Date
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April 2, 2010
- Runtime
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106 minutes
- Director
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Louis Leterrier