Clash of the Titans (remake)

What can I say about Clash of the Titans? Hmm...What to say...What to say...

1. They took out pretty much every shred of mythology from the original. All that stuff about Kalabos, Thetis, Poseidon, Zeus ruling the gods and goddesses with an iron fist, the gifts from the goddesses, the origins of Perseus, all of that - out. You see Zeus and Hades, but that's it. All of the others there on Mt. Olympus are pretty much window dressing to Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes munching on the screen.
2. Perseus wants to be a *man* not a *god.* He whines like Luke Skywalker throughout the entire movie about how he wants to do the whole journey to Medusa as a *man* despite the many good men dying around him because he is stubborn.
3. Io - WTF? I guess Andromeda wasn't warrior-chick enough to be in this movie but for more than a second.
   
4. Man, I miss Ray Harryhausen's special effects. CGI just doesn't give the right feel to what this movie could have been.
5. Oh no, you did not just throw Bubo back into the trunk. He's a gift from Athena dude. You don't just cast off a gift from Athena.
   

I wasn't looking for a retread. I knew that Harryhausen wouldn't be there and that there would be mostly big-bada-booms, but I was very disappointed that they stripped so much of the mythology out. That's what the freaking Clash of the Titans is about, dang it. I admit, I clapped when Neeson said "Release the Kraken!" and when Bubo did show up for all of two seconds.

What this movie needed: more Bubo! More clashing and less "no we are men, not Gods! I will fight as one" and "but I was going into Tatchi for power converters" blah blah. Of course if you remove those feelings from the equation and just see it for what it is, a big CGI action fest, well, it's not so bad.

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs because there was a Kraken, after all