Furia de Titanes 2

Wrath of the Titans (1:39, PG-13, 3-D) — 5 — fantasy: sword & sorcery, biggie, sequel

Here, in response to no obvious demand, we have Sequel of the Titans. What follows is less a coherent review than a collection of observations.

(1) The plural is misleading. There's only 1 titan, Cronos, and he's off-screen for 90% of the film. He's been imprisoned in Tartarus for eons, which explains why he's wrathful. What is never satisfactorily explained (or even addressed) was how this mountain-sized lava monster ever procreated, since he's supposed to be the father of much smaller and more human-like gods like feuding brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

(2) Don't go in with any pre-conceived ideas based on actual Greek mythology. It's a 2011 story featuring characters left over from 2010's Clash of the Titans.

(3) Warner Bros. threw a lot of money at this, and most of it shows up on the screen.

(4) It's pretty much non-stop fighting (vs. chimeras, cyclopes, a minotaur, and assorted gods and demigods), not entirely at the frenetic pace of Transformers, where things are flying by too fast to figure out who's doing what to whom, but too much so for my taste.

(5) The story is not going to win any Pulitzers, Nobels, or Hugos, but it's not entirely predictable, and anything that contemplates the total extinction of the gods gets a big plus from me.

(6) Despite having some pretty good actors in here (Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Bill Nighy, Danny Huston, and, yes, Sam Worthington), they don't really get much chance to practice their craft, but they're not just phoning it in, either.

(7) Based on the damage he absorbed, Perseus should have been dead or permanently crippled on over a dozen occasions. Absence of credible consequences makes it difficult to establish serious threats or build suspense.

(8) Psychologists who are fixated on the idea of daddy complexes will love this. Normal people will spend a lot of time rolling their eyes.

(9) Rosamund Pike is along for the ride as Queen Andromeda, and she gets in a few licks, but mainly she cleans up real good.

(10) I'm fonder of 3-D than most, so FWIW I thot it was put to good use here in the swooping shots thru the burning villages, labyrinth, and pits of hell. Mercifully, no pokey-outy sharp things, but I had to duck the occasional flaming boulder.

(11) This will not tax your intellect, but it's a well-paced, semi-interesting, action-packed ludicrously unbelievable adventure. They could have done worse, and so could you.

The powers of the gods are dwindling and the gods are slowly fading into oblivion. Monsters are being raised from wherever. Buildings are sliding all around the place. And there is no reason to care about ANY of it.

Ares and Hades are villains just as we've seen in nearly EVERY Greek mythology based storyline. I just want to pound my head against the wall every time I see this cinematic flatulence.

The love interest from the first movie is gone and instead of recasting the part, they just kill off the character. Bobo the Owl makes another cameo in this movie, playing the role of Wilson the Volleyball from Castaway. The blue ents are gone... I guess the action figures must not have sold that well.

When the Titan emerges (and it is the ONLY titan in the movie), he looks like the lava Titan from Disney's Hercules. The Titan shouts a lot, but hell if I could ever understand a word he said.

At least Perseus doesn't look like he came from the Jarhead Clan anymore. But he is still an idiot. Zeus comes to him in the beginning of the story to tell him that the world is coming to an end and he needs his help. Perseus refuses because... get this... he refuses to leave his son. Apparently despite having god blood in his veins he is still unable to think far enough in advance to realize that if the world comes to an end, he'll be leaving his son permanently.

The roles of Hades, Zeus and Hephaestus were really good, but three good performances just could not save this turkey from its bad writing and a dreadfully boring plot riddled with clichés.

Perseus returns, this time to rescue Zeus who has been betrayed and locked up in Tartarus.

As for Clash this has great visuals and special effects. The monsters look fantastic (Chimera, Kronos).

The plot is not too deep, it's okay.

Some big name cast members but not great acting. Nighy was good. As for Clash I'm not convinced Worthington is big enough for this role.

Arguably the film is a bit better than Clash as the plot moved along quicker.

Overall, very entertaining movie with fantastic monsters let down by mediocre plot, weak dialogue and unexceptional acting.

I personally felt that the sequel to the remake of Clash of the Titans was much better movie than the remake itself. What made this film work more than the 2010 film was that it a better story, better performances and overall a bit more engaging action. The remake was a mess because the action was all over the place, and you simply lost interest after a while. With Wrath of Titans, they seemed to take a step back, and focus more on a writing a better story, with effective action that would please fantasy fans. The film is far from perfect, but overall it's a satisfying movie that might surprise viewers that hated the Clash of the Titans remake. The run time is shorter, thus it gets to the point fairly quickly and in the case of this film, it's a big plus because, the original just tried too hard at being grand, ambitious and epic, and in turn it turned out to be a tiresome mess of a film, one that wasn't worth investing your time in, and it showed plenty of weak points instead of strengths because it copied the 80's original, instead of trying to come up with a new angle to tell the story. The filmmakers have succeeded at crafting an entertaining movie with lots of action that is not boring or dull, and it's got a good story as well, maybe not the best, but far better than its predecessor. This is not great cinema, but it's a fun, entertaining popcorn action fantasy film if you're in the right frame of mind to watch. The film won't get any awards, but it's not bad either. I was very much entertained by this follow-up, and considering it follows-up a remake, they managed to make it better than its predecessor.

All right, I agree with most people when they say 2010's Clash of the Titans was not a great movie, but I didn't hate it. I didn't walk out of the theater with a feeling like "OMG, that movie kicked ass!". It was OK, I thought the film had pacing issues and the 3D was, well... about as bad and pointless as people made it out to be. So is the sequel, Wrath of the Titans, an improvement?

I'm happy to report that yes, Wrath of the Titans is better. It's not a great film by any means, it is flawed, but if you're looking for 99 simple minutes to kill by looking at some pretty darn impressive action sequences, then you are in luck. Also, if you thought the 3D in Clash was bad, that's not the case with Wrath. Don't expect anything along the lines of Avatar, but I gotta say, the 3D was used pretty nicely and didn't come off as a total gimmick.

My biggest issue with the film, however, is one that I had with the previous film. The film sometimes feels a bit slow and that it takes a while to get started, and there's not really much investment in the story or the characters. Some of the characters are mostly there to provide comic relief, but even that is very hit-or-miss. For the most part, Sam Worthington played his role pretty good, a fine example of under-rated acting. It's nothing great, but it's far from abysmal. Liam Neeson was also rather enjoyable to watch, but hey, it's Liam Neeson. Everybody else isn't particularly interesting, but they're not unforgivably boring or useless. There's also a small romance in the film between Worthington and a female side character, but it comes off as pointless and un-needed. I just don't see why the majority of popcorn action flicks require a relationship when we go to see explosions and amazing special effects, it's just not necessary.

Flaws aside, I enjoyed Wrath of the Titans. I am aware of the hate that this movie is receiving and I can understand some of the quibbles that one may have against it, but hey, at least it's better than it's predecessor.