The Wrath of the Titans

The sequel to the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans is coming out this weekend. Many of you may be wondering, wait didn't that movie suck? Why are they making a sequel? The answer being that while domestically the movie made a little bit more than the budget of the film, around the world the movie made bank. What are you going to do people in Eurasia love action movies. So studio heads fixed all the problems of the first one such as not originally filming it in 3-D, not nearly enough fight scenes, and any semblance of story or accurate portrayal of Greek mythology. What Wrath of the Titans lacks in story it makes up for in visual entertainment and that just may be enough to keep people entertained.

Some of the key actors returned to the movie, notably Sam Worthington as the always straining Perseus, and Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as the divine ZZ top brothers. Many of the roles changed to fit the movies needs, from Andromeda to the director. Andromeda has changed from a lady in waiting to a warrior queen, so it appears they changed the actress to fit the new character and Rosamund Pike does a fine job in the role. Without question though the biggest change is in director as Jonathan Liebesman takes over the helm. With movies like Battle Los Angeles to his credit it is clear the studio knew the direction they wanted the project to take. And with a stable of new writers the team gave the studio what they wanted.

What they wanted was better visual effects and that is what they got. Filmed in 3-D, the visuals are much improved over the 2010 version which converted the movie into 3-D after it was already finished. Everything pops on the screen which is good because the script sizzles out almost immediately. Any semblance of story that is created is used merely to explain how to get to the next fight scene. And even then not all the fights are fully explained, such as a fight with a minotaur who shows up out of nowhere, and leaves before anyone else sees what happened. No doubt the writers chose to use a game of connect-the-dots to storyboard their movie, and with such little space on their single sheet of paper there was even less room for dialogue. The movie's dialogue can be summarized into three lines: "You betrayed me," "The Gods are losing their power," and, oh I don't know a lot of screaming maybe. With all that time saved from by not talking I'm sure the computer animators were able to create an extra monster for Perseus to face.

Lacking in the movie is comic relief, and any attempt by the actors to be funny is quickly stymied. Toby Kebbell is introduced as the initial comic relief but once he enters his first battle he quickly gets captured and after that is only there to fight. Then after the next series of battles our heroes meet Bill Nighy, who is always good for laugh or two. Indeed he does inject the movie with some much needed laughs, but I think once they realize what is going on they quickly dispatch of the character. Good catch boys, that was a close one.

With so little story to tell, and much of the screen time going to fight scenes, the movie doesn't make it past 100 minutes. Which may explain why despite the stories told of how difficult the labyrinth to Tartarus is to navigate, they maybe spend 10 minutes in the maze before they reach their destination. All the action moves quickly, and with no doubt by design. Before you realize what you saw the movie is over and at the very least you can walk out saying well it was better than the first one.

Wrath of the Titans can at the very least say that it was better than the first one. The crew knew what their audience wanted and refused to be bogged down by things like story and dialogue. There is plenty of action to enjoy and to its credit the movie looks good. Just try to ignore what all your other senses are trying to tell you and take it all in. D+