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 Gods indeed deserved better than the 2010 remake of 'Clash of the Titans', a wholly ill-conceived attempt at revisiting the campy Ray Harryhausen sword-and-sorcery epic that instead replaced the original's stop-motion visual effects with second-rate CG effects. And certainly, the producers seemed to have heeded the call with this sequel, retaining the fine cast from the original- Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes- while opting for fresh writers and a new director.

It's still as important however to keep your hopes down for 'Wrath of the Titans', especially for those expecting a sweeping mythological epic. Taking over the reins from French director Louis Leterrier is Johnathan Liebesman, and going by his previous works- 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" and "Battle: Los Angeles"- the man is at best an efficient but uninspired director who pays more attention to visceral pleasures than to anything resembling depth.

That is certainly true of his work here, which vastly improves the action sequences of the original but little else. As if singularly devoting his time to create mind-numbing big-budget sequences, Liebesman invests little in the story and in his characters- God, demi-god and human alike. Both are mechanical at best and engineered with a specific purpose of taking his viewer from one jaw-dropping sequence to another, never mind the inconsistencies or the leaps of logic along the way.

So despite the exposition, the plot of the entire movie can be summed up in a one line- to save Zeus (Neeson) from his conniving brother Hades (Fiennes) and jealous son Aroes (Edgar Ramirez), the demi-god Perseus (Worthington) leaps back into full battle mode since retiring ten years ago to a quiet life in a small fishing village. Before facing the worst of them all, Perseus will have to go up against a host of hideous- looking monsters- a fiery-mouthed Chimera with two heads at the front and a snake's head at its tail; a trio of towering Cyclops giants; a Minotaur; and a band of half-man, half-rock soldiers with four arms and two bodies that twist around on a pair of legs.

There's no denying that the creatures this time are much more inventive, and the action sequences choreographed much more skilfully, adding up to a much more thrilling time than what its predecessor offered. Saving the best for last, Liebesman also crafts an epic finale with a gigantic lava-spewing monster known as the Kronos that also involves a whole legion led by warrior-queen Princess Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). The victory call at the end may be a tad overdone, but the climax alone is worth the price of admission and surprisingly impressive even in post- converted 3D.

Pity then that the rest of the movie often pales in comparison- and perhaps the most jarring of all is the poorly defined interfamilial conflict between Zeus, Hades and Aroes. Screenwriters Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson (working off a story that's also credited to Greg Berlanti) give Aroes little motivation behind his father's betrayal other than his envy of Perseus, nor do they manage the sibling tension between Zeus and Hades convincingly. Worse still, they try to turn Hades into a less straightforward character by casting him as a reluctant pawn in Aroes' scheme midway into the movie, and the subsequent reconciliation between Zeus and Hades is laughable even with the considerable acting talents of Neeson and Fiennes.

Certainly, both thespians are well aware of the thin material here, but kudos to the pair for trying to imbue their Godly characters with the gravitas they usually bring to their roles. Among the more interesting additions to the cast are Bill Nighy as the loony weapons-maker Hephaestus whom Perseus approaches for help to gain entry to the underworld labyrinth Zeus is held captive, as well as Toby Kebbell as Poseidon's son Agenor and the only other character besides Hephaestus to have a sense of humour in the entire movie.

Indeed, the movie takes itself too seriously for its own good, ignoring its own campy origins in favour of a self-serious sensibility to its storytelling that only further exposes its plot and character flaws. This is, and perhaps has always been, about watching Gods, demi-gods and monsters go at each other with sound and fury- and thankfully, this sequel easily betters its predecessor on this regard alone. That's not likely to be enough to make the Gods happy though, but for those of us mortals looking for big-budget mind-numbing spectacle, this will do just fine.

• www.moviexclusive.com

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.

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.

Just finished watching wrath of the titans, and have to say it was better than expected. I was expecting a somewhat average film after the disappointing remake of the original. All the characters played their roles very well especially Zeus and Hades. The version I saw was 3d, and the use of it was much better this time around scenes with falling rocks, Pegasus flying, and other scenes had a strong presence with the 3d. A couple weaknesses I saw in my opinion were the character representations of Hephestus and Hades toward the end. Hephestus was seemed to be way scrawnier, too good looking, not serious enough, and too weak for a god. He was a solid character just wish they made him more represented to how he was in myth. Also without spoiling the character change of Hades toward the end was a little interesting, but felt it shouldn't have been done. The effects were in this movie were awesome especially for Cronus. It also has some great fight scenes that really get you blood pumping. All in all though it was a great action film, with some solid comedy relief, and just a great overall film especially for those looking for flashy effects 8/10