[MOVIE REVIEW] Yawn of the Titans

Miguel Guadalupe's review of the movie Wrath of the Titans


Wrath of the Titans (MPAA Rating: PG-13)
Cast: Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Bill Nighy, Édgar Ramírez, Toby Kebbell, Danny Huston, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson
Director: Jonathan Liebesman


Greek gods, minotaurs, and 2-headed dragons, oh my!  Wrath is the sequel to the 2010 movie Clash of the Titans, itself a remake of the 1981 original.  Here we find out what Peseus (Zeus’s half human son) does after his famous battle with the Kraken, which for all intents and purposes, was nothing. Apparently the whole world did a lot of nothing as well, so much so, that they stopped praying to the gods, and like Tinkerbell, once you stop believing, Zeus and his immortal brethren begin to loose their pixie powers.

This allows Chronos, a bad god, imprisoned by his sons Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, to break free from his prison and wreck havoc with various types of hideous creatures. So the formerly all-powerfuls turn to Perseus to help them make things right.

Sam Worthington reprises Perseus, this time with a shock of bed hair that I guess is supposed to represent his years of peaceful living. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are again the feuding godly brothers Zeus & Hades, and Edgar Ramirez is Ares, Perseus’s brother from another mother and full god.  The only woman in this sword and sandle flick is Queen Andromeda, played by Rosamund Pike, who spends the movie standing around in full battle armor but has only about a dozen lines.

The acting, save Rosamund, seemed phoned in, as Liam spends most of the movie literally passed out and Sam seems to be trying to hold back some inside joke he won’t tell us about.  Whereas Clash had a message about the importance of men over gods, this one seemed to be about whiney boys and their bad relationships with their fathers. Chronos wants to kill his boys the gods, the gods want to kill each other, and everyone wants to take the humans with them. There was some comic relief with Toby Kebbell’s character Agenor, another demigod and son of Poseidon, but I kept hoping they would kill off someone, anyone, just to see if there was any emotion in Sam’s face worth recording.

This could have been a great movie if they put more effort on this storyline of fathers and sons. We get it that Perseus is breaking the chain of absentee fatherhood, but I never get why the gods were in such fear of their dad Chronos. I know the mythology (that Chronos swallowed his children whole and that Zeus tricked him into vomiting out his siblings), but you don’t get any of that from the movie.

My guess is that in Clash they focused on the movie and threw on 3D in the last minute, and for Wrath they did the opposite, making it an extremely enjoyable 3D visual experience, but with a weak plotline and lazy acting. I suspect the studios exercised their sequel clauses where most of these guys were more than ready to move on. You should, too.

Your Daddy time – Wasted or Worth It?  WASTED! Unless you just HAVE to see it in 3D, wait for cable when you can see it in your slippers and snuggies. 2 out of 5 stars


The Worth It/Wasted Rating System is for dads who need to know one thing- Is this movie WORTH IT to:

* Pack up the kids, bags, etc and trek to the theater – or
* Find a babysitter so Dad can have a date night – or
* Cash in brownie points with the Mrs. so he can go with his buddies

If it doesn’t fit these simple criteria, the movie gets the WASTED rating, which means – don’t waste the precious time you have, wait for video/cable when you can squeeze it between chores, work and sleep.



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