Film Review - "Titans" Duology

Well, seeing as I haven't written much beyond Monster Mash or RP-related stuff this year, I thought it would be a nice treat for you guys to review a DVD double-pack that I recently purchased for around £12 whilst helping my mother with the shopping. Now, keep in mind that because I don't know shit about transfer quality or stuff like that when it comes to DVD's, I'll just be looking at the movies on their own rather than the technical aspects of the DVD release that most critics do.

With that out of the way, Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans.

Greek Myths vs. The Mullet of Doom

Clash of the Titans is a 2010 remake of the classic 1981 fantasy film, based on the myth in which Perseus slew Medusa and saved a town from the sea monster Kraken. Wrath of the Titans is the 2012 sequel in which Perseus, now with the world's most ridiculous mullet, must free his father Zeus from the Underworld and stop the titan Kronos from gaining his revenge for being imprisoned millions of years ago. Both films star Sam Worthington in the lead role and also feature Liam Neeson as Zeus, Alexa Davalos as Andromeda and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, with Bubo the mechanical owl from the 1981 film making cameo appearances along the way.

Now both films aren't trying to be smart. This is a given, considering we're dealing with Greek mythology and angry swordsmen fighting hideous monsters. Neither Clash nor Wrath wants to inspire people, send a heartfelt message or adress a sensitive issue. They just want to be bombastic action flicks, full of swordfights and special effects, that you can kick back and watch with mates and let yourself be thrilled by. And to their credit, the films do provide that. They're both drama mixed with action mixed with a sprinkling of comedy, mostly at the expense of everyone who isn't Perseus or his immediate friends. They're fun flicks that don't try to make you think too hard about anything, and sometimes that's all we want.

That said, however, I wholeheartedly reccomend Clash over Wrath.

"I leave for five minutes and you trash the place! You're unbearable, Zeus!"

Due to the fact that it's sort of shackled to the original film plot-wise, Clash does try to make an effort to suck you into the world that it's trying to build. It has a nice, slow start where it sets up the scene and tells us that mortal man has finally gotten sick of dealing with their prick gods and have declared war on them. It takes time to develop Perseus as a character and show us scenes of him with his foster family, so we can understand what motivates him to save Andromeda. We feel worried when Calibos shows up, we feel tense and nervous as we sail the river Styx to find Medusa, we boo when Hades betrays Zeus and we cheer when Perseus finally defeats the Kraken and flies away into the sunset. It's coherant, epic without being overwhelming and you definitely feel for the character's struggles and motivations.

Wrath's problem is that it's trying too hard to be bigger than the previous film. If Clash is Pirates of the Carribean by way of 300, then Wrath is trying to ape Michael Bay's Transformers without grasping the subtleties. It's trying to be this huge, massive film where the stakes are high and the CGI fills the screen, but in order to do so it sacrifices a lot of what made the first film enjoyable and crams the spaces with more computer-generated beasties and mindless action. And as a result it ends up making several fatal mistakes that definitely cause it to drop in quality when compared to Clash, on top of a sudden drop in cinematography that causes the camera to shake like the cameraman is standing on a trampoline.

And these mistakes, briefly, are:

1. Retreading Old Ground
The first problem one encounters with Wrath is that, especially in the first half, it feels incredibly similar to Clash. Perseus may be going to different locations and trying to defeat different monsters, but there's almost a bit of a formula going on - The Djin from Clash are replaced with Cyclopes, Hephaestus (played by Bill Nighy, of all folks) stands in for the Stygian Witches, Ares replaces Calibos, the nameless hunters are swapped out for Agenor, son of Poseidon (think Jack Sparrow minus the charisma and likeability) and Kronos takes the Kraken's place as the Giant Monster Antagonist of the film. Even whole sequences get interchanged - the Djin leading the heroes across the desert to the Witches turns into the  Cyclopes showing the way to Hephaestus's temple, an underground maze replaces the Styx and the Fury attack at the start of the first film is replaced with an angry Chimera.

"Alright, own up - who superglued this wig to my head?"

For a sequel that aims to be bigger than the first film, this is kind of sad. It's as if the film doesn't trust itself with trying anything new and is just going through what it's comfortable with because that's all it knows. Things do get interesting later, when Ares finally snaps and takes on Perseus one-on-one, but for the most part there's a heavy air of "been there, done that" about the film that seems almost cynical.

2. Lack of Pacing
As mentioned before, Clash has a slow start in order to ensure that the audience is drawn in, and then mixes up the action with moments of tense anticipation or wonder in order to keep us interested. Wrath throws any notion of pacing out of the window - first five minutes in and a Chimera is breathing fire everywhere. From then on we get sweeping vistas with Pegaus flying about, a bombastic struggle with the Cyclopes, panic as the shifting Labyrinth nearly crushes our heroes, a fist-fight with a Minotaur and then it all spirals into a chaotic mess of betrayals, confrontations, reconciliations and an over-the-top battle against Kronos before the film finally calms down.

The film seems afraid that if it stops being huge and full of action and digital beasts, it's going to lose the audience's attention. And that's not a good thing - without calm moments to juxtapose against the tension or epicness, then we've got no point of comparison and anything afterwards is either dull by comparison or just disorienting. In it's haste to try and eleveate itself in scale compared to it's predecessor, Wrath cuts out all the more focused drama from Clash and crams more juvenile explosions into the gaps, and the result is the cinemaic equivalent of jangling your car keys in front of a cat's face for two and a half hours.

3. No Subtlety
Speaking of subtlety, a sequence that stuck out in my mind was when the Chimera was attacking Perseus' village. In one instance, the creature clearly demonstrates that it creates fire by breathing out a flammable spray from it's left head, then igniting the vapor with sparks from the right head. As I watched this, an off-screen villager felt the need to shout out "Look out, it's venom catches fire!" I had to laugh at that moment, not only at how corny the line was, but at the fact that the film needed to include it as a means to explain what we could clearly see with our own eyes.

Why it didn't eat the annoying kid, however, was never explained.

Wrath as a whole suffers from a dire need to simply "Show, Don't Tell", as the rule goes. Things are outright stated that would help the movie infinitely more if they were simply implied or hinted at, as if the film doesn't trust us to simply use our heads and make our own deductions. To take that Chimera scene, for example: what does that screaming villager really add? Nothing in the way of drama or tension, so what was that line even for? Why did the film feel it needed to explain what the Chimera was doing when we could clearly see it? Would it not be better if we could simply, you know, assume with our brains that it has flammable venom, without being told so? Give your audience some credit, Wrath - you know not everyone in the theatre's a total moron!

4. No Feel For The Stakes
This is probably my biggest gripe with the movie, and the point I'm probably going to write the most paragraphs about. As part of it's ongoing quest to overshadow Clash in scale and bombastic-ness, Wrath tells us that the stakes are higher than ever, and all of the universe is in danger if Hades and his wicked plan is not stopped. Unfortunately, as an unfortunate side-effect of the previous problem, the film doesn't take the neccesary steps to show us that the stakes are, indeed, raised. And even if it did, it would be kind of meaningless to us as viewers.

Firstly, Kronos is stated to have the power to tear apart the entire universe - pretty ambitious, for a man made of lava. But when he finally does emerge from his volcanic prison, all he really does is stumble forward, groaning in an unidentifiable movie language and smashing apart a few villages with his massive hands. For the most part, it's his Makhai soldiers that do most of the killing or get involved with the heroes. Yes, we see Hades and Zeus try to fight him, but he brushes them aside regardless of whatever power these gods seem to have. We never see Kronos show any power other than spitting lava everywhere, so I hardly see how it makes him any more powerful or dangerous than the Kraken from Clash was stated to be.

"OH GOD I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD ALL THAT CURRY"

Secondly, the scene where Zeus is chained up so Kronos can drain his life force is also a little confusing. Does this process hurt Zeus in any way? It turns him older, yes, but doesn't it cause him any pain? He's having his own life drained away here - the least he could do is maybe howl in pain or struggle to break his chains. But the old god just stays calm and takes it rather well, considering the process could very well kill him or worse. Seeing this, one gets the feeling that this horrible disaster isn't really so horrible or diastrous, and if Perseus fucks up we could always just send another guy in tomorrow or something.

"Sorry I'm late, dad, had to pick up some fish and chips for dinner."

On top of that, the film has raised the stakes a little too high for the audiencr to swallow. From an entire town and the life of a beautiful princess we've jumped straight into the entire universe being at risk, with no middle ground in between. It's too big and overwhelming - the audience can't comprehend the scale of the danger, and thus they can't empathise with the heroes' efforts. Either the stakes are so high that they are meaningless to the audience, or the danger that is stated to be present doesn't seem as... dangerous as claimed. Either way, the whole thing falls flat because the film is either trying too hard or not hard enough.

In summary, while both films are good-hearted, action-y romps that ensure many a spectacle, Wrath feels like a bloated slog that doesn't trust itself to take any risks or the audience to go along with the story. When it's not treading the same ground as the first film, it's stuffing itself with overblown sword fights and CGI images to try and distract us from the shaky writing, annoying characters and cliche'd drama. By being smaller in scale due to it's ties to the original film, Clash actually manages to be the better story - it focuses on being just a part of a huge, epic world where Gods and Men hate each other, rather than trying to set loose another ancient abomination to destroy the world. If you ever have the chance to pick up one of these films, I reccomend the first, every time. It's not particularly deep or congruous, but you're guaranteed to be entertained all the way through.

Also, Natalia Vodinova makes a great Medusa.
 

...Some joke involving snakes and bad hair days.