Wrath of the Visual Effects

So, here we have Wrath of the Titans.  You remember the first film, Clash of the Titans, the remake of the Harryhausen classic?  Not to worry if you don't, apparently it's one of the 50 most hated films of all time and a move I will be writing about in the future.  You know a movie is hated when a studio throws hundreds of millions of dollars into a sequel...y'know, because the first one was so hated, it didn't make any money or anything.  I'm getting a little ahead of myself, because the first one actually wasn't that good...but this one looked to be better.  The question was, was it?


Well in terms of action, yes.  Not really because I believe you got more, but with the exception of the Minotaur scene, at least you got to see it!  Wow, no shaky-cam, except for one part?  I guess the director will get fired as soon as that's discovered.  That being said, this movie is about the creatures, the visuals and the action pieces.  As action goes, it's nothing revolutionary (except the very little shaky-cam thing...in today's day and age, that's REVOLUTIONARY), but it isn't bad, either.  The big winner in here is the creatures, the Cyclops's, the Chimera, the Minotaur (what you see of him), Cronos, his minions, all that stuff is good. 


The story?  It's nothing special.  Hades kidnapped Zeus, he's draining his power for Cronos, Perseus has to stop him, blah, blah, blah.  Some of the dialogue is a little wince-worthy (you look 10,000 years younger, brother), bu then again, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare.  I read on the 'Net that some critic mentioned this movie is for teenaged boys (and we had 4 of them in fact, sitting next to Deceptisean...and they were probably the four most expendable people who ever walked into a movie theatre), but my reaction is this...did you see the first film?  Did you look at the television ads?  The trailers?  Then you would know, this is not a high-brow flick.  They did not pay millions of the dollars to the screenwriters for 'The Artist, Wrath of the Titans edition'.  This was a movie solely relying on being able to produce cool enough creatures to fight the protagonists until they can meander their way to the inevitable climax and conclusion.  In that way, this movie delivered as expected.  A wonderful murder mystery script would have been a nice bonus at best and a cumbersome oddity at worst. 


So, that's Wrath of the Titans for you.  It's not going to change the way you look at life, but as far as time-wasters go, it isn't half-bad. 


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars


- Stephenstein