Wrath of the Titans

Wrath of the Titans was a big question mark. Its predecessor, the critically bashed, big money grossing remake, Clash of the Titans was much of the same. But in this second chapter, the film stays consistent with the positives and negatives of its predecessor. Sam Worthington returns as Perseus, the half human son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), who attempts to save his father from Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and his brother Ares (Edgar Ramirez). Zeus was captured in order to drain his power to free the evil titan, Kronos. Kronos will of course destroy the world if he escapes.

The necessity for a full back story isn’t there because of Wrath’s status as a sequel. However, there should be a bit of a buildup in order to develop the story. In fact, that can sum up the main issue with the entire film, lack of development on the part of Perseus as well as the overall plot. But before you go and cause a big uproar about how “bad” of a movie it is, there are some bright spots. Extended screen time for Zeus and Hades means more of the Oscar nominated actors playing them. These obviously aren’t their best performances, but they still make the segments with the gods interesting.

Wrath of the Titans duplicates the moments that prove most successful in its predecessor by slightly changing situations and what mythical creature is getting beat up. The action is strong with very involved visual effects. But with the intention of increasing the scale of the movie, some scenes come off as cartoony. Kronos is too large, the armies too massive and an underdog story turns into something more fitting for a video game. So with all these problems, is it strange that I actually really liked the movie? No, it’s meant to be entertaining after all.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.