(M) **

Director: Louis Leterrier.

Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Mads Mikkelsen.

WHILE Desmond Davis' 1981 original hasn't stood the test of time terribly well, it still holds a special place in the hearts of many.

It certainly hasn't been improved upon by Louis Leterrier, the man behind Edward Norton's under-rated Hulk film - merely amped up and dumbed down for the generation of filmgoers raised on a steady diet of CG effects and Lord Of The Rings movies.

Aussie Avatar star Worthington is Pegasus, the bastard son of Zeus, left for dead but discovered and brought up by a kindly fishermen (played by Pete Postlethwaite).

When his foster family is killed by the god of the Underworld, Hades (Fiennes), Perseus is inadvertantly dragged into a battle between the gods and the humans, with the mere mortals threatening to cast off their deities, and the deities threatening to "release the Kraken" on the lower beings. Perseus soon discovers his demi-god heritage and is sent on a mission to save the humans by finding a way to kill the Kraken.

Worthington is proving to be a serviceable action man, although his Aussie accent is off-putting amid the English tones we've come to expect in ancient Greece (which is strange, but true). Down Under inflection aside, he holds his own again here despite some woefully melodramatic dialogue and some clunky attempts at humour.

Fiennes and Neeson (that's Voldemort vs Qui-Gon) are good as Zeus and Hades, but most of the rest of the cast is left to fill out the numbers, particularly Arterton's Io who serves as a deus ex machina, popping up to either save Perseus, fill in the plot holes or provide useful tactical information. That's just lazy scriptwriting.

The wonky script's themes about Perseus inner battle between mankind and god-dom are lost all together and even the CG battle sequences are a let-down (how is possible that the 1997 bugs from Starship Troopers look better than the scorpions in this 13-years-later movie?).

Clash Of The Titans fails because of a very simple principle - the script is not good - and no amount of slaying Krakens that look like the lovechild of Cloverfield and a rancor is going to save it.