Wrath of the Titans

When I was growing up, we had video games based on movies. Then, for a while, Hollywood became obsessed with making video games into movies. Now we have films like Wrath of the Titans, which are movies that feel like video games. This is a mindless little piece of entertainment that goes in one ear and out the other, not bothering to make the slightest impression. It sure does look like it cost a lot to make, but the pace is so frantic, we hardly get a chance to admire what we're looking at.

Wrath of the Titans is not exactly a movie concerned with its plot, so it perhaps wisely decides to cram all of its narrative in its opening 10 minutes or so. We rejoin the hero from the last movie, Perseus (Sam Worthington), having hung up his sword and retired from the game of Titan-slaying. He is now concerned with a peaceful life as a fisherman, and being a single dad to his young son, Helius (John Bell). The peaceful life is interrupted when Perseus' immortal father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), pays him a visit late one night, to inform him that trouble's-a-brewin' in the Underworld. It seems that Zeus' brother, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), is plotting to free the dark god Cronus from his prison. Perseus rejects Zeus' pleas for help, wanting to just lead a simple life with his son. When Zeus goes to the Underworld to try to talk some sense into his wayward brother, he is betrayed by his equally wayward son, Ares (Edgar Ramirez), and imprisoned, where he is rapidly losing power. With the fate of the gods and the mortals at stake, Perseus finds himself forced to go into battle once more.

After this set up, which brushes aside all the plot details and character introductions as quickly as possible, the remaining 90 minutes or so is devoted to non-stop action, explosions, fire demons rising up from the earth, giant cyclopes, and armies of extras racing into battle. Director Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles) shoots all of this with such frantic energy and motion, it quickly becomes overkill. We want the movie to slow down, but this movie is relentless. So is the soundtrack, which is filled with wall-to-wall screeches, screaming, shouting, erupting fire, and a bombastic music score that never lets up. There is a science to making a film like this. You have to give your audience a chance to breathe once in a while, or at least feel something. This is just non-stop sound and fury pounding away at your senses.

Perseus is joined in his journey by a small band of heroes, but this movie will be damned if it lets us make an emotional connection with any of them. There's Agenor (Toby Kebbell), the son of Poseidon, who serves as the comic relief, so at least he gets to possess a sense of humor. (Something everybody else in this movie lacks.) There's also Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), whose main role in this movie is apparently to stand around and look attractive. She fills that requirement well, but I'm sorry if I expect more from my heroines. There are some other people who follow Perseus into battle, but they exist to be killed off in the action sequences that seem less like scripted events, and more like boss battles from a video game. Watch the climactic battle between Perseus and the giant fire demon, and tell me it doesn't resemble the final boss battle from a game. The only thing missing are button prompts popping up on the screen.

Maybe this is a good time to point out that I have nothing against video games in general. Some of them can have wonderful stories, and can be great experiences. Wrath of the Titans simply models itself after the most mindless, button-mashing examples of video games. It's a dead zone of creativity, throwing a bunch of images and noise up on the screen to give the impression that something is happening. It will no doubt bring in the teen crowd this weekend, thanks to an aggressive ad campaign that has made it this week's movie to see if you have already seen The Hunger Games. I have no doubt that audiences will turn out in droves. My question is, how much of this movie will they be able to remember by the middle of next week?

I have a hunch that even supporters of this movie will find it hard to be enthused by this, and will label it as a successful little time waster. Considering how much money obviously went into this project, can you blame me for hoping for more?

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