Wrath of the Titans: Exciting but not Spectacular

This past weekend I was able to make my way down to Westgate Cinemas in New Castle to see the new Wrath of the Titans film. I must say, it was the weirdest sequel to Remember the Titans I have ever seen! I mean, there was not one single football in it, let alone Denzel Washington! Alright, enough silliness, back to work. It was a legitimately good film and one that I enjoyed watching, and while not the absolute best film I have ever seen, it certainly had good parts to it. The scenery was beautiful, the action was exciting and the acting was not half bad, but it seems like the makers of this film tried to fit all their cool ideas into this film which ended up making the whole movie less than what it could have been.

Wrath of the Titans, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, is an Action-Adventure film about Perseus, the demigod son of Zeus, attempting to live the quiet life with his son Helius. Meanwhile in the underworld, Zeus and Poseidon are betrayed by Hades and Ares. Hades and Ares capture Zeus and use his power to try to release the imprisoned Titan Kronos. If Kronos were to be released, it would mean the end of all life. Perseus answers Poseidon’s call for help and travels to the underworld to save Zeus and stop the Titan from awakening.

Overall I thought the movie was pretty enjoyable, but one thing that really impressed me was the scenery. There were many shots of vast plains, deep forests and high mountains, making the movie watching experience even more interesting. There is one scene where the main characters are fighting Cyclopses in a forest and while the action was certainly exciting, it was the area in which they fought that really interested me. There was something strangely beautiful about the way the light passed through the leaves and cast long dark shadows on the ground. Another scene that blew me away visually was when Perseus traveled to the Mount of Idols, a high mountain with many statues to the gods. The visual team of the movie must have really taken their time with this because the mountain itself was amazing and the scenery around it added so much to the effect.

Not only was the scenery good, but the CGI effects of the movie added a lot to the action scenes. When you see Perseus fighting a massive, two-headed chimera that is spitting fire, you can not help but be amazed. A huge multitude of creatures were brought from Greek mythology onto the screen in this movie. Creatures like the minotaur, Cyclops, chimeras and even a Pegasus were featured throughout the movie and each one was done beautifully. The fight scenes with some of these creatures were very exciting and very entertaining. The use of CGI in this film was done in a very natural way; none of the CGI additions seemed to stick out and everything looked very good.

There was only one large flaw with this movie. While the movie makers obviously had many interesting ideas that could be used, it seems like they tried to fit every single one of those cool ideas into the movie. The movie had fights with many different mythological creatures, had journeys to strange and exciting new lands, had a massive mazelike dungeon, and many other amazing things, but the film did not go deeply into any of them. Had they devoted more on screen time to fully explain and explore a few of these possible ideas rather than just skimming over many, I think the movie could have been much better than it was.

Overall Wrath of the Titans was solid, enjoyable and very entertaining, but not the best film I have ever seen. The scenery was wonderful, the CGI monsters and action scenes were very fun, but there was just too much stuff that was pushed into the 2 hour movie to give any one idea enough time. Because of these points, I would have to give this film a C+. While enjoyable and entertaining, it was not very memorable, nor did it really stand out from any other CGI based action movie where stuff explodes.