Wrath Of The Titans - Movie Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

While this sequel is just as loud and chaotic as 2010's Clash of the Titans remake, it's also considerably more fun due to some exhilarating action and a refreshing sense of humour. It also looks amazing in 3D on an Imax screen.

Years later, the now-widowed hero Perseus (Worthington) is trying to live as an anonymous fisherman with his pre-teen son Helius (Bell). Then he hears about stirrings of a coming calamity. Indeed, his father Zeus (Neeson) has been kidnapped by Hades (Fiennes) and Ares (Ramirez) as pat of a plan to release Zeus and Hades' evil father Kronos from the underworld. So Perseus teams up with Queen Andromeda (Pike) and rogue demigod Agenor (Kebbell), son of Poseidon (Huston), to rescue his father and stop his brother, uncle and grandfather.

Yes, this is one seriously dysfunctional family, as four generations of men set out to either destroy the world or save it. To be honest, it's never clear why Hades and Ares are so hellbent, as it were, on cataclysmic destruction, but at least this also allows for changing alliances as the story progresses. Not that there's much story, really, as the plot essentially just links a series of action set-pieces.

Fortunately, most of these sequences are entertaining enough to keep us gripped. Highlights include a rather fabulous dragon attack and a desperate, full-on fight with cyclops-giants in a forest. Less convincing are a convoluted underworld rescue-battle and the climactic assault on the volcano-sized Kronos, who rains down fire and destruction rather selectively. (There's also the problem of how the filmmakers can top Kronos in the probable sequel.)

Along the way, there are some refreshing moments of deranged humour, mainly in Kebbell's snarky dialog, Pike's sharp glances and a particularly colourful turn by Nighy (as super-spear smelter Hephaestus). But as the story progresses, there's more than a whiff of Lord of the Rings (the fires of Mount Doom, plus some pointless two-torsoed Orc-a-likes), Harry Potter (the three-pronged Deathly Hallows) and even Star Wars (all that father-son angst). But filmmaker Liebesman keeps things moving briskly, wowing us with so much eye-candy that we just sit back and enjoy the rickety ride for what it is.

Facts and Figures

Year: 2012

Run time: 99 mins

In Theaters: Friday 30th March 2012

Box Office USA: $83.6M

Box Office Worldwide: $301M

Budget: $150M

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Production compaines: Thunder Road Pictures, Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Cott Productions, Furia de Titanes II, A.I.E.

Reviews

Contactmusic.com: 3 / 5

Rotten Tomatoes: 25%
Fresh: 42 Rotten: 123

IMDB: 5.8 / 10

Cast & Crew

Director: Jonathan Liebesman

Producer: Basil Iwanyk, Polly Johnsen

Screenwriter: Dan Mazeau, David Johnson

Starring: Liam Neeson as Zeus, Sam Worthington as Perseus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades, Rosamund Pike as Andromeda, Bill Nighy as Hephaestus, Toby Kebbell as Argenor, Danny Huston as Poseidon, Édgar Ramírez as Ares, John Bell as Helius, Lily James as Korrina, Spencer Wilding as Minotaur, Martin Bayfield as Cyclops

Also starring: Edgar Ramirez, Basil Iwanyk, David Johnson