Clash of the Titans: How To Kill Fucking Krakens

Thousands of years ago, there were a bunch of Greeks who all sounded British, except for one who was not only Australian, but so Badass that he had a buzz-cut four thousand years before the first set of clippers was invented. A fisherman found Mr. Baby Badass floating in a coffin, adopted him, named him Perseus (Greek for Badass, I assume) and taught him the important things in life like Love, Happiness and Snappy One-Liners.

Then some idiots throw a statue off a cliff and piss off a bunch of demonic bats who kill the soldiers before merging into the God of Death and Hellfire who fireballs the fishing boat out of random spite. Thus begins the Heroic Quest of Perseus to avenge his Family.

So he gets dragged along to a palace, meets a princess, finds out he has a guardian Warrior Chick who was cursed with Eternal Youth (man, don't you hate it when you get cursed with Eternal Youth? I do.) and decides to wander off to Kill The Fucking Kraken so that The God of Atmospheric Pollution will be vulnerable. No, we don't know WHY that will make the god vulnerable, it just will, okay? Don't question! You don't know!

To Kill The Fucking Kraken, Perseus has to go find some Witches (Fates) who tell him about Medusa and her Gaze of Petrification. So, he goes to kill her. Except that he's being chased by his biological mother's husband who was turned into a venomous crab-man or something when he was struck by Godly Lightning. Whatever. A walking tree shows up, saves Perseus from CrabMan Venom with Blue Fire and tames some giant scorpions so they can use them as replacement horses. Then they go kill Medusa, who laughs a lot and shoots arrows. Everyone dies and it's all really Quite Awesome.

After bidding a Manly Goodbye to his Not-Girlfriend the Cursed-With-Youth Chick (who told him to Calm His Storm because doing it with the mini-skirted son of a god famous for his sex mojo is not on top of her priority list...) because she got stabbed by CrabMan, Perseus mans up and goes to Kill The Fucking Kraken.

He kills it. The Kraken turns out to be what you'd get if a Giant Squid had babies with a Snapping Turtle and those alien bug-monsters from World of Warcraft. It dies Dramatically, the Princess (who had five lines) is saved, Perseus gets a Thank-You from his Daddy and seems remarkably chill about the whole Man Vs God thing now that he sorta-kinda laid the Partial Smack-Down upon Mr Hellfire.

And then Daddy brings Cursed-With-Youth Chick back to life because Zeus' son does NOT go off into the sunset without a babe on his arm.

That's Clash of the Titans for you, folks. How did it rate on the Suspiciously Accurate Scale? It was Win. Not EPIC, not Badass, but it was good and Win-full. On the strength of the special effects, the cinematography, the make-up, the costumes and the casting, oh, it was FREAKING EPIC. However they apparently used up all their budget (monetary and creative) on that stuff and didn't leave any for plot pacing, character development, coherent story or understandable motivation.

Clash reminded me of one of those oil-on-water rainbow-puddles. Pretty, fun to look at and play with for a few minutes, but shallow and short-lived. I'd see it again at the 2-dollar theater, I'll probably even get it on DVD when it comes out. I like pretty, shiny things and there really are some amusing moments. The battle with Medusa is pretty Awesome, actually Moar Awesomez than the battle with the Kraken if truth be told. But, I wouldn't spend money on the Deluxe Edition and I'd watch the movie while I was doing my taxes or filling out warranty cards.

Overall Rating: WIN with a side of CHARACTER FAIL. B-