Of any film that has had a sequel green lit the remake of Clash of the Titans would seem an odd choice. It wasn’t a runaway hit, making a good but not great box office elevated artificially with 3D ticket prices, but there’s enough Greek mythology to make another film. Fashioned into Wrath of the Titans, the film feels about as vapid and shallow as the remake and franchise starter did.
Perseus (Sam Worthington) is now a father and a widower, a hero having slain the Kraeken years ago, and is now called upon by his father Zeus (Liam Neeson) to save the world again. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Ares (Edgar Ramirez) are conspiring to free Kronos. People have stopped praying to the Gods and with their power weakening it’s a deal to stay immortal. With Zeus trapped in the Greek version of hell, it’s up to Perseus and his cousin and fellow half god (Toby Kebbell) alongside warrior queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) to save the world from the evil about to be unleashed.
This isn’t a real deep film in terms of plot or character development, much like the first, and if anything it’s just a retread of the first with slightly better CGI. Perseus is still torn between the world of the immortal gods and that of men; he’s still coming to grips with it as well as his status as the badass hero who saved Greece already but it’s nothing we haven’t seen already. From the action sequences to the film’s finale there isn’t anything that is all that surprising.
Sam Worthington sleep-walking through the lead role once again doesn’t help the film. Perseus isn’t a well written role nor is it one that requires him to do much but be an action hero and it shows. This is just enough to not be embarrassing but not enough to give the film any depth. But that sort of describes both films so far: shallow. This film much like Clash of the Titans wants to be an ancient Greek blockbuster and nothing more.
As such it’s an a/v spectacle but doesn’t have any heart behind it; it feels like a really expensive Iron Maiden video instead of a film. You could probably dub over “Brave New World” onto the film and not really lose much in terms of story-telling or character depth. In terms of its visual stylings, though, the film is fairly remarkable. The film is rumored to have cost over $150 million and it shows on screen. This is a film with some remarkable special effects and Jonathan Liebesman shoots the film wonderfully.
The problem is that for all the effects in the film there’s nothing behind it. This is just Liebesman aping Michael Bay’s style, nothing more, and getting about as much of a result as you can expect.
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Notable Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Edgar Ramirez, Toby Kebbell, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy, Danny Huston, John Bell
Writer(s): Dan Mazeau & David Leslie Johnson
