Perseus (Sam Worthington, “Man on a Ledge”) has once more taken his place amongst humanity. He and his son are living as simple fisherman until Perseus’s father Zeus (Liam Neeson, “The Grey”) descends from Olympus to enlist Perseus in an attempt to prevent the imminent escape of the evil titan Chronus.
While Perseus initially refuses, he soon becomes pulled into the fight when the gods Hades (Ralph Fiennes, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”) and Ares (Edgar Ramirez, “Vantage Point”) betray Zeus and begin to feed his power to Chronus. Perseus, along with Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike, “The Big Year”) and Poseidon’s son Agenor (Toby Kebbell, “War Horse”), must undertake a quest into the underworld to find Tartarus, the prison created by the gods to imprison the titans.
As the gods die around them, these three – and the forces at their command – must find a way to defeat a creature that wants nothing more than to destroy the world.
And there you have it. You saw the trailers. No surprises here.
I was fascinated by Greek mythology when I was a kid, but “Wrath of the Titans,” more so even than its predecessor, bears little resemblance to the stories that engaged me so much. The myths themselves were rarely particularly subtle, but even that bit of nuance has been hammered away in a wave of CGI monstrosities and 3D showboating.
Worthington is game, but Perseus is such a cartoon at this point that all he really has to do is look menacing while he sharpens stuff and yell a bunch. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are both on cruise control; their performances aren’t really bad, but the general disinterest is palpable. Pike is an empty-eyed space-filler with an awkwardly obvious lack of chemistry with Worthington, while the rest of the cast is ultimately forgettable.
Don’t get me wrong; there’s definitely still a bit of a thrill in watching enormous battles involving monsters and gods. And one of the tools the filmmakers wield well is the massive scale of their world, creating a larger-than-life landscape and some memorable screen pictures.
It just doesn’t add up. “Wrath of the Titans” is a mythological mish-mash that never quite finds its footing. There are some moments of excitement, but ultimately we simply don’t care enough about any of these characters for those moments to have any real impact. This movie is plenty big and it is definitely loud, but it might be just a little bit too dumb.
1.5 out of 5
