Two years after the big budget remake Clash of the Titans fought its way onto the screens and passed 500 million at the box office Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson and co are back in ancient Greece with more of those pesky Titans to deal with. This time round the Titans are keen for our hero to feel their wrath…
Wrath of the Titans picks up a few years after the first film with Perseus now settled down and living the quiet life of a fisherman and father. Of course Perseus’ own father Zeus is never to far away and soon pops up to warn his son that he has certain obligations as the demi-god off-spring of an irresponsible deity, namely to save the world as the real gods are losing their powers. Perseus being the responsible father that he is tells the old man to back off and settles back into his routine…until his own village is threatened and then he’s off to stop all evil once again.
One of the biggest issues most people had with the first movie was the misuse of 3D. In fact so mishandled was the post-production converting of the film that the movies title became the by-word for really, really shoddy 3D. So this one has reverted to 2D right…well no…in fact this time round the film-makers went even further in their embrace of 3D and set up almost all of the action sequences to “benefit” from the perspective change. To their credit they have embraced the gimmicky side of 3D, with objects flying out of the screen with startling regularity. To say that the special effects are a step up on the first film is to severely understate the visual leap forward, and although it drops at time the 3D doesn’t hamper the film as it did the last time. It’s a shame that the same cannot be said for the script, which burdens the players with cumbersome dialogue and doesn’t do enough to drive the narrative forward. Mainly it serves only as a mechanism to hang the set-pieces on, but for a popcorn movie that’s probably enough.
Sam Worthington gives a good reluctant hero and his fight sequences and general performance level is more than sufficient. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes revel in the sheer absurdity of their roles, and oftentimes appear to be acting in a movie that’s of a higher calibre than the one presented here. Bill Nighy offers some great comic relief in a limited role, plus he plays counter-party to easily the best cameo in the film. Toby Kebbell on the other hand is trying much too hard to be the funny man and really could do with spending more time with Bill honing his art. Another star guilty of trying too hard is Edgar Ramirez, who looks to be on the verge of a full-blown psychotic episode at all times. Oh and the less said about Rosamund Pike the better… Like Gemma Arterton in the previous flick she serves purely as eye-candy and offers nothing aside from that.
As a swords and sandals epic it’s not the movie it could have been, but as a Saturday afternoon popcorn spectacular than requires no real thinking and offers bags of action it does exactly what it sets out to.