Wrath of the Titans

After news came back that Clash of the Titans had not only made its $125million budget back, but had also amassed nearly $500million worth of takings overall, the decision for a remake followed swiftly afterwards. Despite critics widely slating the film on its release, in purely economic terms, the first film was a huge success story. However, the story still goes in Hollywood, the money a film makes worldwide speaks much louder than its content or appeal. Two years on and now Wrath of the Titans predictably arrives on to our cinemas and IMAX screens.

After slicing the head of Medusa and defeating the mighty Kraken, Perseus (Sam Worthington) now prefers putting all his strength into bonding with his son Helius, and living the quieter life as a fisherman. However, drama is never too far away when you live life as a demi-god. Perseus’ father Zeus (Liam Neeson), is slowly losing his control over the Titans and it is up to Perseus, with help from warrior Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and fellow demi-god Agenor (Toby Kebbell), to travel to the underworld and save Zeus from Kronos and Perseus’ traitor brother Ares (Edgar Ramirez).

The makers of Wrath of the Titans promise a film including fights of “cataclysmic proportions, bigger and bolder than ever before” putting our hero Perseus “against enemies the likes of which no man has ever faced”. The film has all the potential to maybe exceed its predecessor in takings and content. However, holding only a running time of 99 minutes, Wrath of the Titans ends up being a whirlwind of just fight sequence after fight sequence with clunky, boring dialogue pasted in-between that just have great actors like Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, looking criminally adequate. 

The plot isn’t very difficult to follow. It is established very early on, what road the story is going to take. However, the need for actors to explain where we are, what we are doing, “what’s going to happen if we fail” is incredibly tedious and wholly insulting. Being penned by a writer who was named “the screenwriter to watch this year” in 2008, the short, clichéd lines delivered either in shouts or in whispers by the cast get increasingly annoying.

That is to say Wrath of the Titans does have some merit mainly towards the stunning visual effects and CGI which went into this project. Viewing the film on an IMAX 3D screen is really something and although the call of 3D’s demise is out and audible, you really cannot ignore the realism and thrill the effect gives you in a lot of the film’s sequences. 

It is a better film than Clash of the Titans, but that really isn’t saying a whole lot. I was entertained throughout most of the film, but I just couldn’t help notice the disappointment when seeing such a talented cast caught up in the economic and financial webs of Hollywood.

Richard Taverner

Wrath of the Titans is released nationwide on 30^th March 2012.

Watch the trailer for Wrath of the Titans here: