Sunday, April 1, 2012

Wrath of the Titans Review

To be perfectly honest, Wrath of the Titans wasn't a movie that I was extremely interested in. My original plan was to catch it in the dollar theater, rent it on RedBox, or something like that. However, I ended up spending the weekend at my parent's house where there was a cheap theater and with nothing else to do on a Saturday night my brother and I decided that we were going to see a movie. Wrath was our choice. Being completely honest, right off the bat I will tell you that this was a terrible movie, but it fulfilled its purpose. It's a pure guy's movie. The exact opposite of a chick flick, if there's an official term for that. A brainless, action-packed movie with sweet special effects and explosions.

Wrath of the Titans is the sequel to Clash of the Titans if you didn't catch that yet. And to give you a bit of an insight to my perspective with this review, I actually enjoyed Clash of the Titans more than most people. Now I don't actually remember a whole ton about it, which does kinda say something about the movie, but that is besides the point. I enjoyed it. With Wrath I didn't come in with high expectations. What I did expect was a movie that was like Clash and I was thus preparing myself to be mildly entertained. And I was, but it was not what I was expecting. While Clash wasn't great, it at least had somewhat of a good story line in addition to some decent acting, good characters, and good character development, with some action thrown in there. What wrath does is go almost completely against that. Somewhere along the lines, the movie makers decided that they didn't need much of a story line and they didn't need great characters that developed as the movie went along. They decided that action and effects were all they needed in this one and that is exactly what they did.

Now, I can enjoy a good pure action movie, but I am a sucker for a story line. To me having a good story line is the most important part of the movie. That is what you are doing. You are telling me a story. I don't come to the theaters just to see things blow up or see people kill each other in battle. I want a good convincing story that I get sucked into and connect with. That is what Wrath missed the mark on. Their story was terrible and for me it ruined the movie. Now, I won't tell you the whole story line, but here is the basic premise. Ten years after the events of Clash, Perseus is still living with his son in the small town they are in after his wife died. One day Zeus comes to him in desperation. The people have stopped praying to the Gods and that is thus causing them to lose their power. So they need to do something about it. Well, Perseus decided that he wants to stay put and so Zeus decides that it is a good idea to go down to his brother Hades, with his other brother Poseidon and son Ares because that is going to solve the problem. And of course going down to Hades backfires and the all powerful Zeus is now prisoner to Hades. Then Perseus decides for once in his life that he is going to go to the temple and pray with his son. That's where he finds that his dad is in trouble so its time for a rescue mission down to hell to save daddy. Perseus also brings some comrades with him on his journey, Andromeda, Agenor, and Hephaestus. Oh yeah, Hades releases the Titans again. Or at least one of them, the Titans leader Kronos, the father of Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. Which now I know that the father of these great Gods is a sweet looking lava monster. And yes, Gods can die. They turn into sand and melt when they do. 

Can you tell that I wasn't a huge fan of this story that was being told to me? I thought it was weird and awkward. I got bored of it during several places and found myself dozing off a couple of times, which is never a good sign. On top of that, I saw very little character development. And the acting was surprisingly not very good in my opinion. It wasn't horrid, but it also wasn't great and I am usually one that likes Liam Neesen. This was the first movie of his that I thought his performance was flat. The same goes with all of the other actors of which included some good ones with Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes, and Bill Nighy in addition to Neesen. None were great. Also, I am not one that knows a whole lot about Greek mythology, but I am pretty sure the only accurate thing this movie had was the correct names. It felt like the film makers knew just about as much Greek mythology as I do. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this, I would be interested to learn. Now there were some good aspects of this movie. The action was great. Lots of fun to watch. And it had really good effects with good cinematography. The music was also decent. I wasn't wowed by it, but it was good. And for those reasons, I did enjoy myself. Like I said earlier, it fulfilled its purposes by satisfying my needs for the night.

So in conclusion, if you want to see a brainless action-packed movie and having a bad story line or poor character development doesn't bother you, then you would enjoy this movie and I recommend you see it. Otherwise, I recommend you skip it or wait till it hits the dollar theater / RedBox to see it. I'm giving it a 5 out of 10. 

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