Wrath of the Titans has been called out as the sequel that nobody wanted. The 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans was one of those remakes that seemed suitable for Hollywood, considering that stop-motion effects were considered outdated, but while the movie was a tremendous hit at the box office, everyone forgot about it a year later at the latest. Now, the studio wants to soak up any extra cash they can get with a follow-up, and I'm hoping that people will follow through with their plan to pass on it, as Wrath is a tremendous mess.
The movie picks up years after where the first movie left off. Perseus, played by Sam Worthington, has been leading his life as a man, despising the gods so much that he's been persuading people to stop praying to them. And since the power of gods comes from the prayers of people, the life power of the gods is starting to wear thin. Eventually, he finds out that his father of a god ("Godfather?"), Zeus, played by Liam Neeson, has been kidnapped by Ares, played by Edgar Ramirez. Ares plans on soaking up Zeus's life to unleash a titan onto the world. So, Perseus decides to go rescue Zeus, bringing along a few companions and gaining weapons designed specifically for the gods.
All of the problems with the first movie are present here. The story moves along too quickly, the characters feel terribly underdeveloped, and the CGI still looks cheesy, obnoxious, and highly overused. At the same time, however, there was a slight element of fun to the first movie, as it did have a lot of well-constructed action, and while the CGI did look cheesy, the design of everything was fun to look at. That element of fun has been extracted here, and is instead replaced with confusion.
First off, why does Perseus hate the gods? Because they lashed out on humanity in the first movie? Well, Zeus does try to make amends with Perseus in the end, so they can't be all THAT bad, right? And even if I did accept this unexplained hate for the gods, why does Perseus go after Zeus in the first place? To stop Ares from unleashing that titan? Well, that would make sense, except that titan ended up getting released after they rescue Zeus, so clearly, that whole venture was completely pointless. Also, if the energy of all the gods is wearing thin from the lack of prayers, how can sucking up Zeus's energy give Ares the power to unleash a titan? He obviously has just as much energy as the rest of the gods, numbnuts!
Even if all of those questions don't rattle in your mind, the movie still makes no sense. Both the script and the overall editing of the movie lack the element of montage. See, in a movie, every cut is intertwined to create scenes that follow up on the plot. Here, the plot just constantly finds excuses to pad itself out through its own made-up mythology, and the editing is just a jumbled mess of different scenes tied in one after another with no coherent logical order. You might as well just have a shot of a camel followed by a shot of a man drinking Diet Coke followed by a shot of a rover on Mars followed by a close-up of an ant farm. YEAH, TRY TO PIECE THAT TOGETHER. Say what you will about the first movie, but as bland and underdeveloped as it was, it was still straight-forward, making it somewhat entertaining in its mindless, action-packed style. This movie, while being equally as bland, is so jumbled that it's impossible to tell what's going on, let alone get invested even in a mindless manner.
The existence of a movie like Wrath of the Titans makes me sick to still want to watch Hollywood blockbusters. It's a forced-out sequel made for no reason other than to grab some extra cash. It fails to mend the problems with the first movie, and it's so poorly constructed that there's not even any mindless fun to have. I didn't expect it to be good, but I certainly didn't expect to be left so utterly confused.
This movie is worth $0.
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