Wrath of the Titans Review in 3D
Sometimes a picture really is worth 1000 words.
So last night I went and saw this snoozefest. Paying full pop on cruddy movies in 3D galls, but when a movie is obviously trying to make it’s money in CGI and special effects rather than story, dialog, action, acting, or any of those other pesky aspects of movies the so called audience is looking for I feel it only fair that I watch it in whatever media the creator intended it to be seen. That being said, there aren’t a lot of things on this planet that would have convinced me to spend another $5 to see it on IMAX.
Clash of the Titans came out before I was fully into the whole movie review thing and so I managed to miss it. From what I have heard and read I didn’t miss much. Is it fair to review a sequel without having seen the first one? In once sense no, but in the sense that unless the first movie had hypnotic subliminal codes embedded that makes the audience more receptive to blurry CGI and camera work, plot holes the size of a medium Midwestern town, and acting so phoned in I kept mistaking the film for an extended Sprint commercial than I don’t think any aspect of the first movie would have increased anything other than my dread at having to sit through this one.
This movie will seem familiar to a lot of people, and that’s because watching it is like watching someone else play God of War badly. Pretty much every visual, character, and bad guy was lifted from that game, and if there is one thing that bores people it’s watching someone else killing stuff on a computer. The game-like status of the film carries through every aspect of the 99 minutes, except that I have seen my share of better CGI, story, and acting from any number of good video games (God of War image courtesy of the Video Game T Shirts).
One area where the movie diverges significantly from its video game forefather is in the action. Everything is rushed, blurry, and way too close while at the same time horrible sanitized by the PG-13 rating. I suppose this is actually a good move, as the only audience members who will enjoy this film are probably kids, but it made everything seem tame and drained whatever tension that had been generated.
The story is of Perseus (Sam Worthington-Avatar, Man on a Ledge, the Debt) a few years after he beats the Krakon. For reasons really unexplored he has opted to not life like a half god and instead wants to be a fisherman with is son Helius (John Bell-a Shine of Rainbows, Transit, Life of Riley). He gets a visit from his father Zeus (Liam Neeson-Taken, Phantom Menace, the Grey) who warns him that the Titans are breaking out of Tartarus and will wreak havoc on the world. He says that since humans are no longer worshiping the gods (?) they are losing power and Chronos will eventually break out and destroy the world. Perseus opts to not help, because he and his son don’t live on the world about to be destroyed or something. Titans start showing up in all their mediocre CGI glory. Persues somehow kills the first one (I’m honestly not sure how. None of the action seemed designed to give any kind of information about what was happening to the audience) and goes on a quest to talk to the father he just blew off a few hours ago.
Anyway, Pegasus shows up, looking pretty mediocre in the CGI department too. If it weren’t black I might have mistaken it for the claymation Pegasus from the original Clash. He hooks up with Queen Andromoda (Rosamund Pike-Die Another Day, the Big Year, Johnny English Reborn) who has just gotten back from Disposable Henchmen-R-Us where they were having a massive clearance sale. Meanwhile Hades (Ralph Fiennes-Voldemort from Harry Potter, the Hurt Locker, Nanny McPhee Returns) and Ares (Édgar Ramírez-Vantage Point, the Bourne Ultimatum, El Don) have betrayed Zeus and Poseidon (Danny Huston-X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the Aviator, Children of Men) and are helping Chronos in return for not being killed or something.
I don’t really want to go on with this story recap, because to be honest I was really starting to check out. They go on a dumb quest with the help of one of Poseidons sons who was supposed to add some comic relief or something. They have to free Zues before Chronos sucks his power dry. Stuff gets blown up, it is strongly implied in a PG-13 manner that people get killed, and more mediocre CGI is rolled out.
The stars. I don’t know. I guess I kind of liked seeing Voldemort again, and I always appreciate Liam Neeson. That’s two stars.
The black holes. Big plot holes. One black hole. I really disliked the way the camera work was done. One black hole. Mediocre CGI. One black hole. Story was dumb, and lifted from a video game without giving the game credit. Two stars. Action that did nothing to hole my interest. One black hole. The curse of a violent movie with a PG-13 rating. One black hole. Uninspired acting all around. One black hole. Little to no development for most of the characters, and what little there was did nothing to make me sympathetic to Perseus. His entire motivation seemed to boil down to “He has a son”. One black hole. Taking a very liberal hand with the mythology of Perseus in order to make a bad movie (in mythology Perseus never fought the Minotaur. Of course none of the gods ever died either. The Greeks knew a thing or two about the definition of immortality). One black hole. The ultimate bad guy Chronos suffered from the same problem as the gigantic gas cloud from the Green Lantern in that he was more like a force of nature than something evil, resulting in me never caring about him. One black hole. This was another movie where no one could decide what kind of accent ancient Greeks would have when speaking English so everyone just rolled with whatever they had. I heard Australian, English, and American. One black hole. I know this is both super nerdy and nit picky, but I am really bothered by the use of counterweight trebuchets by the ancient Greeks. This war machine was not invented until the 12th century and primarily used in France. One black hole for tweaking my historical inaccuracy nerve. And finally, the bottom line is I was bored through most of this film. Pacing didn’t so much as suck as actively enhance the fact that the action was dull and the interstitial scenes connecting them even duller. Watching this movie was like driving across West Texas. One black hole. Total: fourteen black holes.
A grand total of twelve black holes. Pretty miserable. The film feels like they were just going through the motions and not really trying too hard, like a married couple that wants to get divorced but is waiting for the kids to graduate high school. Should you see it? Probably not, unless you are easily amused. With enough alcohol or acid you might enjoy this just for the flashy blurry stuff on the screen. Date movie? Probably not. If a super nerd such as I had to struggle to stay awake your date will be dozing off in the first 20 minutes. On the other hand, if you are determined to see it watch it on a big screen, as the shots will probably suck a lot more on a TV. Do you have a $1 Theater nearby? Probably a decent choice there.
Thanks for reading. More movies out this weekend, so maybe I can wash this one out of my mouth with Mirrror Mirror, which I think looks funny. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu, or email me with questions or comments at [email protected]. Feel free to post comments about this movie here if you like. As long as you keep it clean and aren’t just trying to spam this blog for links I will approve them. Talk to you soon.
Dave
