Wrath of the Titans
Release Date:
March 30, 2012
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 156/169 |
Max Braden |
Like the first Titans, it has great visuals but is a mess of a movie to follow. |
In 2010, Warner Bros. garnered the wrong sort of headlines with their reboot of Clash of the Titans. The reason was that they took the easy way out. Everyone in the industry recognized that the industry was heading in the direction of 3D releases because that’s where the most expensive ticket sales occur. This trend had begun after principal photography of Clash of the Titans had begun.
Warner Bros. was left with a pair of options. One was to ignore the trend since their movie was not a 3D title. The other would be a shamelessly commercial decision to add moderate 3D affects after the fact. One of the golden rules of Hollywood came into play at this point. When art battles commerce in this industry, art always gets its ass kicked.
The results were predictable. Clash of the Titans was excoriated by film lovers and more than one industry observer decried the movie as endangering the 3D trend before it had ever truly begun. Oftentimes described as 2.5D, Clash of the Titans proved to be a blockbuster, aided significantly by its… 3D ticket pricing. The movie opened to $61.2 million and went on to $163 million domestically. Its worldwide box office take was roughly half a billion dollars.
This created a strange dynamic for Warner Bros. There is a term for movies that earn half a billion dollars. That term is “franchise”. The problem is that Clash of the Titans doesn’t lend itself well to a sequel. Fortunately, 2012 has proven to be the year of the needless sequel with Journey to the Center of the Earth and Ghost Rider also getting early year follow-ups that nobody was requesting. So, Warner Bros. can get away with a sequel to a much reviled project and thereby scrape up another few hundred million. Sorry, art lovers. This is capitalism in action.
The story for Wrath of the Titans borders on irrelevant… Just in case you care, Perseus is left to clean up after the events of his previous battle with the gods. Ten years later, he has become the ancient Greek demigod equivalent of a stay at home dad, at least until he gets drawn back into the family business. It seems that the god of the underworld would like some sunlight, so he convinces the god of weaponry (I’m sparing you the names because this is not a Mythology 101 class) to create a weapon that can strike down even Zeus (okay, you really should know that one). Then, the god of war winds up turning on his father and joins forces with the god of the underworld.
Zeus and his mother hooked up because she had a weakness for showers of gold (see, I took Mythology 101) and Perseus wound up being born. Since his dad totally took advantage of his mother and then treated her like (mortal) garbage, Perseus has always had daddy issues. Still, he doesn’t want his old man killed by other gods as that sets the wrong tone in the family. So, Perseus tries to stop the god of the underworld and the god of war from reaching their goal of domination on Olympus as well as Earth. Yes, Perseus will be battling the god of war in this movie. Good luck with that.
Anyway, Wrath of the Titans will be a special effects driven showpiece for several mythological creatures save for the Kraken because, well, you know. Don’t worry. There are still plenty of multi-headed beasts out there for Perseus to slay. He’s the scourge of every endangered mythological species on the planet. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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