Wrath of the Titans (2012)
Feel the Wrath
Did you know they made a sequel to the reboot of Clash of the Titans? I didn’t. Well, I tell you what, we’ll do that tonight! Originally I had though I should try and find some Mortal Kombat-adjacent movie to get people hyped for the release of the new one next week, but instead I found a movie about part gods fighting big ole monsters. Close enough right? Harness you Pegasus and polish your armor, tonight I’m watching Wrath of the Titans.
So our main man has been taking some time off from the hero business, his wife has died, and he’s raising a kid now. Meanwhile, the gods are loosing power left and right, on account of the populace not really praying to them much anymore. Trouble is brewing down in Tartarus, and it looks like the god’s angry old man might be working at breaking free - a problem that could spell the end of the world and everything on it. On an investigation trip, Ares and Hades betray Zeus, capturing him and wounding Poseidon. They plan to use Zeus’ power to release Kronos, in exchange for continued immortality. Our main man finds himself going on a quest to save his father Zeus and stop this plight for the sake of not just his son, but indeed the universe. Along the way, he teams up with a warrior queen and the son of Poseidon as they journey to find a way in, and a way to stop their over-powered enemies.
I’m not super versed in Greek mythology, but I’m pretty sure they probably took some liberties with things. Does it bother me? Not really, but like I said, I don’t really have my bank invested in the mythos specifically. What they use of it provides plenty of back drop for the story they want to tell. It gives you the classic save the world dilemma, it tries to give you some emotional backdrop between the main and his kid, or the relationship between Zeus and his kids, or between Zeus and Hades - but mileage there will probably vary pretty good between persons. You could probably rip out some of that faith topic in there, what with the whole gods being fueled by prayers and stuff. It gives you some monsters, some humans, and some stuff that’s inbetween - really, pretty much what you’d expect out of a sequel to Clash.
But how are the actors? Well, most are the same actors - so you get a lot of decent performances here. Sometimes all these older bearded folks might get people a little lost as to who they are watching perform, but the voices certainly stick out as who they are supposed to be. People do a good job here, and you won’t really be groaning through most of the performances. Plenty of commanding voices - and even if you don’t recognize them through that beard and hair, you’ll be like “oh wait, that’s so and so!” That being said, not all of the characters are great, or utilized to the most. The queen is there, and has a few moments to seem like a warrior, but she never really gets a chance to shine as a warrior. Poseidon’s kid is hyped up to be this great navigator (although arguably only by himself), but he never really does any navigating outside of the trident-fed journey to the island. Kind of a missed opportunity for real character growth of any major extent, and it does make the movie end up feeling more like a generic action movie than anything that really thought about trying to make a big statement in any way that sticks around with you - which is fine for me, since I figured it was going to be what it was, so I wasn’t surprised.
Time for a prison inspection.
Well, you probably find yourself wondering - if he figures it to be a generic action movie, than how is the action? Well, it’s not horrible. I mean, there’s a bit of give and take here - sometimes it’s pretty cool looking with plenty of easy to see and follow action - other times it’s a bit hectic and covered in obscuring smoke and dust and not as impressive. That said, it does have some fun playing around with it’s creatures, allowing things like two-bodied things to rip around like a hurricane and just decimate some poor soldiers, or fire-breathing chimeras to go on a chase through a town. There’s almost more chase-oriented scenes than typical action fights, which seems almost odd in hindsight, but it works well enough. It does leave a large portion of the movie where you don’t get any real choreography to enjoy, but stunt workers get plenty of work to do getting tossed about.
Effects work plays a pretty important role here as well. I’m sure you already guessed that, given all the times I’ve mentioned monsters. It’s a largely well done bag, with a few nuggets of less impressive in there. A summer blockbuster type of movie, if you will. Some stuff - like the Cyclops, looks great from far away, but looks less great up close. Other things, like leaky lava fingers, look pretty good throughout, and sometimes benefit from a bigger screen for that sense of scale. Costumes all look pretty cool on the human front as well, largely being that fantasy Greek design. At times it’ll be a bit silly - in on shot a soldier helmet is way to big for him, with his eyes just peeking out of the bottom of the bottom of the eye hole - but largely if you like fantasy movies and Greek mythos then you shouldn’t be upset about the costumes. It’s good stuff to look at, so there’s no real complaints there, even when it does fall slightly below grade than other moments.
Audio is good as well. Balancing is good, and music does it’s job. It’s more of an epic scoring this time around, orchestral and all that sort - although there’s some fun themes that pop up for characters at times like the Ares theme that almost makes me think more of an Egyptian sort of feel for some reason. It all sounds pretty good, and they throw in a few moments where a language is different - such as the cyclops language. There’s a few accents in there of varying degrees - not sure why Hephaestus sounds so Scottish at times, but as long as I can understand a person I don’t really care, I just enjoy hearing accents. Speaks to the make-believe side of me I suppose, although I wouldn’t fault a person if it took them out of their experience because of it.
Somebody has a bat in the cave.
I mean, I won’t sugar coat it - it’s pretty much just more of the same as the last reboot. If you enjoyed that, you’ll enjoy this - if you didn’t than you won’t. It has some good effects, it has some fun scenes. Set your expectations to generic and you won’t be very disappointed in it.