Wrath of the Titans, the follow up to 2010’s wildly successful Clash of the Titans is a far better outing. Jonathan Liebesman takes the helm and dodges a lot of the pitfalls from the first movie. Though not critically loved, Clash of the Titans pleased fans enough to make this sequel. After watching Wrath of the Titans I cannot imagine not seeing a poster for (blank) of the Titans coming in 2014. This movie is the definition of a popcorn movie and gears audiences up for an action packed movie bonanza that is on the horizon in the upcoming months.
The story picks up a decade after
Clash where we see Perseus living a normal life with his son, Helius. Like a classic gunslinger from a spaghetti western, Perseus vows never to pick up his sword or allow his son to do so. All is not so normal for the Gods at this time, however. Zeus and the other Gods are losing power because people aren’t praying to them. All the while Kronos, father of Zeus, is planning to escape from his prison to destroy the world. Perseus is forced to pick up his sword again and do his duty to save the universe as the son of Zeus. Like and good adventure quest we need a band of merry men/women to accompany our hero. Agenor, the demigod son of Poseidon, joins the group with Queen Andromeda and some of her troops. Our hero team sets off to save the universe by heading to Hell, Tartarus, to win the day.
I liked the simple and effective premise of the movie. It's one we have seen time and again, but enjoyable just the same. Sam Worthington (Preseus) does a much better job in this movie than the first. Before I found him just brooding and bland, here he was still brooding but kicking a little bit more ass. Speaking of kicking ass, the action was amped up quite a bit for Wrath. It's clear that the words “more action” were scribbled in the margins of the a first draft. Liebesman definitely paid attention and gave fans what they were missing in the first movie. The scenes were Perseus must battle certain boss monsters the brutality was far and away better. By the way, I call them boss monsters because they all appear at the end of the levels much like a boss villain in a video game. Frankly, this movie was created and marketed to a crowd that would get the reference immediately. The 3D, which was post converted, was a vast improvement. I thought the 3D worked great to make for a more intense feel during the amped up action sequences. I however still don’t believe it was needed, but a nice fun addition.
Now that I have said all the sweet lovely things about the movie, let's get critical. The movie has no brain. It is a big dumb ogre stumbling, LOUDLY, through the forest knocking things over. While the action was pumped up the fast jump cuts get a tad old and frustrating at times. You get to hear a lot of the action but see so much less of it. I wanted to just have the camera pull back from a scene a few feet. Close action shots look great in small doses but continually for the majority of 99 minutes, no thank you. Earlier I said Worthington was better in this one, that’s true. However, that’s not really saying much. His character has little to no depth. He is a man made of cardboard fighting fake monsters. I didn’t care about him or any of the characters to be honest. I felt like I was just going through the motions for 99 minutes. The supporting cast was there but no stand out performances really existed. The only scene I found that was just outright offensive to my movie loving brain was with Liam Nesson and Ralph Fiennes. Having these two amazing actors pretend to shoot magic at a green screen was one of the worst moments I have seen in a while.
All and all the movie is what I would expect, pure popcorn. The movie knows what it is and delivers to its audience in a big way. If you are going for a big, loud, and proper 3D-ed popcorn action flick this is for you. When I saw
Clash I actually fell asleep because I was so bored. However,
Wrath grabs your attention and holds it for 99 minutes even if you don’t care about the characters to any level of depth. Look forward to the third film in the series, guaranteed!