Hold on there. You may be asking, “Why are the Titans
feeling wrathful?” Their feelings of discontent can go back a decade or two to what
transpired in “Clash of the Titans,” where Perseus, played by Sam Worthington,
defeated the Kraken and retired to raise his son. You may remember that Perseus
is a demigod, the son of Zeus, played by Liam Neeson, and a human mother. Or
maybe you don’t remember. Perseus doesn’t settle down for long because there is
a worldwide catastrophe with the gods. Humans have stopped believing in them,
and the gods, no matter what anyone have been led to believe, depend on their
power on the faith of those who believe in them. Ebert admitted, “I was
reminded of Tinker Bell, and toyed with the notion of Perseus turning to the
audience and asking, "Do you believe in gods?"”
We see that Perseus is not very fond of Zeus, who did assault
his mother. However, the time has come to take a step back and look at the bigger
picture. Zeus is being held prisoner by Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes, who
hopes to steal his power. Now Perseus must go to the underworld to rescue his
father, restore his power, and prevent Hades from taking over the world. This
he and his team must do by negotiating a labyrinth and descend to Tartarus.
The labyrinth scene isn’t bad. This contraption was
built from the outside in, we see, leaving only one escape route. It has an
insane maze of giant rocks, arranged like a clockwork instrument so that its
elements grind and shift change forms. The stones appear to be able to sense
where the gods are and play with them. Ebert said, “It is frankly impossible to
see how the (human-sized) gods have half a chance in its bowels, especially
since exits become dead ends, narrow corridors begin to crush in upon them, and
so on. If you were to quiz me on how they escape, I would be puzzled. They just
... found their way out, I guess.”
Never mind, “Wrath of the Titans,” released in 2012,
is obviously not concerned with believability. Ebert admitted, “It lacks a
comprehensible story, and you won't need your Cliff Notes on the Greek myths.” You
get an idea of who the protagonists are, and then they spend a good amount of
time saying laughable dialogue at one another while being forced off the screen
by special effects.
That’s where the meteors and exploding mountains come
in. Ebert said, “No attempt is made to achieve a consistent physical scale in
the movie, nor a comprehensible spatial plan. I was never quite sure where
anybody or anything was in relationship to anything else, and eventually I gave
up trying: This is a montage of sweaty, dirty, bloodied faces and figures
assembled to fit between balls of fire.”
Ebert continued, “I should have added that the movie
is in 3-D. This is not a help. "Wrath of the Titans" is to begin with
a dusty, murky pictorial confusion, not helped by dim underworld scenes, and
although I'm sure the focus must be excellent, it had an imprecise feeling to
me. Then the 3-D glasses did their bit to reduce the light level from the
screen, and unlimited clouds of smoke, dust and sand were generated by the
explosions, and finally I found myself wondering, just for the heck of it, how
the movie might have played with a more traditional approach. You know.
Literate, concise dialogue.” Characters we care about, with relationships that
have meaning for audiences. Action set-pieces within well-established three-dimensional
boundaries. Pacing that doesn’t go past viewers faster than we can develop
interest.
As you may have guessed, this movie is atrocious compared
to the first one. The first film was already bad enough, why did they need to
make a sequel? As anyone can tell you, remakes are rarely any good and to make
a sequel to the remake is a mistake. Never make the mistake of seeing this sequel
because you will regret ever watching this.
Next week, I will ending “Liam Neeson Month” with a
board game adaptation that was bad.
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