I should have bought stock in the Acme Foam Rock Factory. Because
let’s face it, without foam rocks Wrath of the Titans would be much less wrathy.
Foam rocks falling around Olympus .
Foam rocks raining down in an underworld maze. Foam rocks thrown by a beastly
Chimera that falls from the sky leaving a crater of foam rocks. Between the
harmless foam rocks (sales pitch: they’re actor approved!) and their bastard
step-cousins, CGI rocks, the entire sequel to Clash of the Titans is a
rockslide of tumbling fake granite. You could smoke crack with Dwayne Johnson
inside George Washington’s left nostril at Mt. Rushmore
Who asked for a second Clash of the Titans anyway? I don’t
remember mailing that letter to Warner Bros. Pictures, but someone did and now
we all have to suffer, although thankfully not as much as we suffered in 2010
with the first film. Yes, Wrath of the Titans is a slight improvement on that
dismal clunker, which is the most upbeat endorsement I can offer.
This one picks up 15 or so years after the first film. Perseus
(Sam Worthington) has a son, but his wife has died (read between the lines: the
actress didn’t want to return). The half-god Perseus is enjoying peace, but
then Zeus (Liam Neeson) appears to share his sorrows. It seems that the Greek
gods are turning on each other, and monsters are being released. Perseus needs
to be mankind’s hero again.
And there’s your plot. Nothing else is really needed: the hero
must kill things, end of story. If this trend keeps up eventually movie studios
will just ditch plots altogether so they can assemble action films out of
randomly generated scenes of people slaying things with swords and guns — no
common thread, no story, no point. Consider another medium that people like: It has no plot, no story and not even characters, yet it features an endless array of explosions set to an upbeat soundtrack. Sound fun? They're called fireworks, and they should never be compared to movies.
Sadly, this is pretty much already happening. Look at
films like Transformers, Battleship or The Avengers. They’re all variations of
humans killing non-human invaders. Directors like Michael Bay convince
themselves they’re filming stories by including characters that share ideas,
hopes or dreams, but really they supply these scenes only keep the “plot”
charade alive. While better movies wish to truly look into the hearts and souls
of its characters, these movies only wish to purge them of their hearts and
souls with bombs, bullets or broadswords.
So, off goes Perseus, sword in hand, to stab things. And when he
loses his sword he’ll just club them to death. He meets the Chimera, a couple
thick-headed cyclops that were apparently animated using 2003 CGI technology, a
centaur with a facial deformation and then finally Cronos, a lava monster that
actually looks quite spectacular. Watch how he flings curtains of lava at Greek
armies; he’s so massive that the lava cools to rock (foam rock!) by the time it
hits the ground. I like little details like that.
Question: Is it OK to cheer for the monsters? Because I was. The
monsters had more fun than the rest of the cast, and they were being driven into
battle by much more interesting characters, including Hades, played by a
still-marvelous Ralph Fiennes, and Ares, played by Carlos star Édgar Ramírez.
Never mind how a talented Venezuelan actor with a wonderful Spanish accent became
the Greek god of war; I guess it’s a testament to Ramírez’s uncanny abilities.
On the heroes side, Perseus isn’t all bad. He doesn’t have that
buzzcut anymore, which makes him instantly more likable. His character just carries no
weight for me and he doesn’t have much to really do, which is understandable since film fails to make his motivations altogether clear. Does he fight for the dead wife, Zeus, new girlfriend, son? Wrath seems to bat down each option making Perseus look less like a hero and more like simple thug brought in to murder and then go home. At that point he is no different than one of the titans. This failure is especially obvious at the end of the film when he’s
thrown into a romance for no other reason than because there’s a female still
alive at the end.
Fans of movies like this will argue that I must judge Wrath of
the Titans on its own terms. I wouldn’t judge an SUV by sports-car standards,
so why judge an action adventure movie about Greek mythology using the
standards of a drama, a mystery thriller or a bio-picture? I'll tell you why: because I believe that a good narrative can
exist across all genres, and by suggesting it’s not that important in a movie
like Wrath of the Titans is a cop-out to making a better movie.
So if you like movies like Wrath of the Titans, I have another movie suggestion for you: wait until the evening of July 4 and then look up into the sky.
