Gaze upon the poster ladies and gentleman, for it’s the most exciting part of this “epic” movie.

I hate to review films like this. Films that have no fucking right to exist because they are simply not fun to write since there’s not enough to ridicule or to lavish with praise. Wrath of Titans is not a terrible film, but it’s not a good movie. It falls into that lazy pit of forgettable mediocrity that NO ONE will remember years from now. Hell, I seriously doubt if any one will remember this movie by the end of April 2012. But this is made all the more frustrating by the film’s premise and marketing, which promised a balls-to-the-wall mythological slam fest, but the creators only succeeded in making a poorly written video game cutscene. 

So, here we have the sequel to the remake of the classic Clash of the Titans of 1981 with Laurence Oliver (Christ, writing that sentence reminded me of Inception all of a sudden). We follow Sam Worthington playing as Perseus, son of Zeus, and apparently badass warrior who slayed the Kraken in the last movie. He’s decided to move away from his former monster-killing and God defying ways to be a fisherman with his son. The whole film is about the bond between father and son as they come to terms with the fall of religion in ancient Greece…oh wait, sorry, wrong movie.

Course, shit goes down when the Titan Kronos, father of Zeus (Liam Motherfucking Neeson), is trying to break free from his prison since people no longer believe in the Gods. Of course they don’t, that was the entire point I could surmise from the equally poor first movie: to defy the Greek Gods for being such massive assholes. But for some reason, Perseus is called on by his daddy (who is a god I remind you) to help defeat Kronos. Meanwhile, Hades (played by Voldermort, I mean Ralph Fiennes) betrays Zeus to Kronos so that he can keep his immortality, which is being drained…because…people aren’t praying to the gods anymore. Holy shit, I can’t believe I just typed that sentence, none of this makes any goddamn sense.

Here’s why nothing in this film makes any damn sense: in the first movie, Perseus challenges and stands up to the Gods by slaying their pet. He does this because the Gods were trying to punish Perseus’ people for rejecting the deities. In this movie, Perseus is tasked by Zeus (his father and one of these gods who also managed to fuck him over countless times) to help the Gods by killing the father of the Gods. Seeing the breakdown in this convoluted mess? The sequel’s plot keeps tripping over itself with these inconsistencies in motivation so much, that it boggles the damn mind. I could go on and on about the plot issues (like why Zeus would trust Hades again after Hades clearly tried to overthrow him in the last movie), but that will take all fucking day. Let’s move on.

Now I’ve heard many times before (mostly because of the Transformers movies), that “story doesn’t matter as long as there’s cool action”. But that’s the problem with the latter two films in that series and Wrath of the Titans, the action isn’t cool. It’s a convoluted mess that usually employs my arch nemesis, shaky cam, to frame action scenes were actors have to pantomime and pretend they are dodging attacks from obviously computer generated monsters. You can tell they don’t know how to react to certain situations involving creatures because the actors can’t see what the hell is going on. Only the programmers and directors can only imagine what is going on as they craft the film with their computers. With so much computer work, the film cannot help itself from being a cutscene in a video game you can’t play. So, with such poorly filmed scenes, I’m left with little to like in this movie besides how pretty it can be when you see a giant monster burst out of a mountain (that scene should be in a way cooler movie than what we got).

The actors do a piss poor job all around. I’ve never grasped how some directors like Sam Worthington or imagine him to be the next great action hero because he doesn’t have a memorable physique, personality, or well…anything. He just looks utterly bland in everything he is in from Terminator Salvation to Avatar. And in this movie, he doesn’t do any better as Perseus. His dialogue is flat and boring, his fight scenes are not intense, and he’s just not personable or likable at all. His companions are simply the equally as bland love interest / warrior queen who has even less personality than Perseus since she has fewer lines; and the “comic” relief sidekick who spouts a clever quip to everything around him while getting into trouble and being all around useless.

The only two actors who I can forgive are Neeson and Voldermort because they will act theshit out of anything they are given. Fiennes can pump menacing out of anything, including this trite; while Neeson’s soothing and authoritative voices makes me truly believe he is Zeus. But that’s the only positive I can say about the movie besides the good effects.

While Wrath didn’t piss me off, it just feels like a waste. It really is the useless cash grab it’s executives were hoping to make by crapping out any film with Greek Gods and monsters then calling it a day. Greek Mythology deserves something more epic than this, so far fans and those interested in such tales I recommend playing the God of War series on Playstation 3. As for this movie, diehard fans of mythology might get a kick out of it with a rental. For all else, avoid.

-Ha-Ra

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