Clash of the Titans 3D

Clash of the Titans’ trashy matinee aspirations make it easy to forgive its second-rate 3D, if not to stop finding it funny. It’s obvious this won’t match Avatar’s sensory rush when an early shot has baby Perseus’ head floating several visual planes closer to us than the rest of his body. Taken in its less amusing two-dimensions, Clash of the Titans is an adept time-waster, but so what? This remake by once-interesting action director Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2, Unleashed) is more revanchist than the 1981 Ray Harryhausen swan song, but goes through the motions without much spirit. Sure, the crab monster attack has convincing CG effects. But Harryhausen’s primitive stop-motion creatures were more fun to look at because they had a tactile presence. Leterrier fashions an iconic Greek myth into the sort of escapist blockbuster that evaporates the second the end credits roll. –Mark Palermo