Wrath Of The Titans Review

30th Mar 2012

Wrath of the Titans is lucky to be with us. Its predecessor, “Clash” was not well received by critics and was lambasted for its cheeky 3D conversion that sank right to the bottom of the barrel of poor 3D conversions.

Personally – I saw the film in 2D and after all the downplaying of the films content was pleasantly surprised at how entertained I was. It wasn’t the best fantasy action adventure I had seen by a mile, but it was certainly a guilty pleasure worthy of a couple of re-watches over the past couple of years – even with stoney faced leading man Sam Worthington in the lead role.

Wrath brings back i’s principle “Godly” supporting players Liam Neeson as Zeus (always great value) Ralph Fiennes as Hades (Thankfully having dropped the whispered voice from the last film) and even Danny Huston as Poseidon. The two former get greatly expanded roles as Hades plots with Zeus’ son Aeres (Edgar Ramirez) to imprison Zeus and let loose their titan father so he can unleash hell on earth. Huston on the other hand barely gets a role larger than the one he had in the first film. But at least he is granted a couple of decent scenes before making his exit.

And where are all of those other gods? Well sadly the heavens are not seen as we spend most of our time in the underworld as Perseus (Worthington) has to traverse monsters and mayhem on a journey with a band of mostly useless misfits to help rescue his father.

So the sense of adventure is back – and the production value we have to say is very good (A shame the director isn’t great at picking the best angles to shoot from). The film then looks like it has great visual content, but it isn’t fully utilised.It’s like finding a great piece of artwork, and then some klutz mis-frames the photo you take of it.

The effects are a huge step up from the first film (which to be fair were not the worst). Some of the invention here and execution of detail is worth savouring and will bring people back to watch it again. It is the action then that will have people paying the best compliments to this film.

What is lacking though is some decent dialogue. There are many (MANY) chat scenes, and characters hit and miss at an average ratio, but some of the dialogue is just so poor you wonder that the scriptwriters bothered to redraft instead of just leaving it in the hands of capable actors.

The sense of fun has also waned slowly – leaving Toby Kebbell to provide most of the fun and laughs (if you can call it that). The story follows a fairly similar narrative plot – “group of men on a mission.” Quite why it isn’t as fun as the previous film is anyone’s guess, but it has enough points to make for a good enough trip to the cinema, but only just. You can thank Neeson and Fiennes for most of the acting work, and the artistic departments for the visuals!