I really don’t remember much about CLASH OF THE TITANS. I recall the horrendous post-conversion 3-D and the waste of the Kraken, but, beyond that, I couldn’t give you the nuts and bolts of the film, because it just wasn’t that memorable. I even tried to bring myself up to speed a bit on it the other night when CLASH was playing on HBO, but I could barely make it through the scorpion battle. It was all so pointless, and that was without the distraction of trying to figure out what I was watching that the dizzying 3-D created during my initial theatre experience. For such a fantastical action-adventure, there wasn’t an ounce of fun to be found throughout the film.
Therefore, you’d think someone would have learned from the mistakes of CLASH OF THE TITANS in order to make a better sequel. Too bad that’s not the case, as terrible post-conversion 3-D, another wasted creature of destruction and a special effects over plot mentality form the follow-up WRATH OF THE TITANS. CLASH may have played like a video game – moving from stage to stage, setting up Perseus (Sam Worthington) for boss battles against the likes of giant scorpions and the serpent-haired Medusa in order to progress things forward – but at least there was some semblance of a story attempting to be told. For WRATH, everything seems to be meandering along to different points where “Ooohhh, it’d be cool if we stuck in a creature battle right now.”
Sam Worthington returns as the demigod son of Zeus. This time instead of battling against his father who wishes to destroy the mortals for their defiance of the gods, Perseus must rescue his father from the clutches of Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and his traitorous half-brother Ares (Edgar Ramirez) before all of his powers are zapped. Not doing so would free Zeus’ daddy Kronos from the confines of the underworld prison Tartarus allowing him a shot at crushing the mortals.
With Andromeda (Rosamund Pike replaces Alexa Davalos) and Agenor, the demigod of Poseidon (Toby Kebbell), accompanying him on his rescue mission, Perseus will this time encounter the two-headed, fire-breathing bat-dog Chimera, a pair of giant Cyclopses, a labyrinth with more technology than we have in the modern era, a Minotaur, the double-torsoed Makhai and the always in slow motion Kronos, all of which only seem to make an appearance any time WRATH needs an action beat. There’s really no rhyme nor reason as to why most of them pop up, and when they do, it’s in a fast-paced, quickly-cut chase/fight sequence that has you squinting through your 3-D glasses trying to make out what is actually transpiring on-screen. Perhaps the action may look better in 2-D, but, with your eyes and brain unable to digest all of that motion in such a hurry, chunks of the film are nothing more than indecipherable blurs. Director Jonathan Liebesman doesn’t seem equipped to handle the task of filming for 3-D, as the Chimera scene, for example, is reminiscent of some of the action he did for BATTLE: LOS ANGELES. The shots are extremely tight, which doesn’t allow for full appreciation of the special effects creation, but beyond that, makes it extremely difficult for your eyes to focus on the image. It’d be like trying to watch a boxing match or a MMA fight on your television with your face pressed up against the screen. You can’t distinguish a damn thing that’s going on, because you’re not giving the proper distance to consume the image. Compounding the problem, Liebesman relies on a lot of handheld shots during the chase aspects of the scene (that means some shaky cam), which, in 3-D, make for a nice combination of strained eyes and the beginnings of a headache.
Worthington plods his way through another film, in the hopes that his muscles can more than make up for his lack of charisma. He just keeps the film moving along at a lifeless trajectory, as supporting cast like Kebbell or Bill Nighy (Hephaestus) are then called upon to ham it up as some sort of comic relief. Only their lighter antics are out of place with the stern tone established by the lead, and you can see why there’s no joy to be had from watching WRATH OF THE TITANS. Sam Worthington made sure anything of the sort would look ridiculous compared to his unwavering seriousness, and it does.
Neither the journey nor the destination is exciting. The jumble of mythological creatures ruins any build to the film’s climax, but, once you get there, much like the Kraken before, Kronos is this large being that doesn’t translate well to the screen at all. First off, you can’t see Perseus and Kronos engage in hand-to-hand combat, which means there are no battles taking place with meaningful stakes. It’s no different than Green Lantern being on the other side of things as Parallax. In theory, it’s still a fight between good and evil, but, in execution, there’s really no fight at all. In fact, there’s more to the lesser battles than the one that counts the most. However, it’s all made worse by the largeness of Kronos. He really has no physical equal, which makes for an anti-climactic climax. While they’re able to fit him on the screen in his entirety, something that couldn’t be managed for the Kraken, everything he does is made to be in slow motion, whether intentional or not. It may be due to his size that to move his arm across his body seems to take forever, or it may be that they’re trying to show how truly awesome he is. The problem is that it comes across as neither. It comes across once again as something made to look cool that unfortunately doesn’t. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that incredible to see about what is essentially a monster killing the masses by throwing Hi-C looking lava at humans from miles away. Get in there and wreck some shit. You’re bigger than everyone. Destroying from a distance is some weak sauce that makes the entire effort of freeing Kronos even more disappointing.
WRATH OF THE TITANS is yet another in a long line of flicks trying to replace emotional substance with visual. Special effects can’t be the basis of a film. They can be a tool to help improve your overall vision, but to have no characters to care about and no story to latch onto, it’s an empty 90 minutes spent at the theatre. WRATH OF THE TITANS goes hard on the style, but there’s no substance to make it relevant. It’s amazing to think that the sequel to WRATH OF THE TITANS could have turned out to be a far lesser film than the original, which is really saying something since it wasn’t very good itself.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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