Wrath of the Titans (2012) – Film Review
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Cast: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes
Certificate: 12
By Roger Crow
Unlike the original Clash of the Titans, which had a sequel in pre-production that never saw the light of day, the 2010 reboot spawned Wrath of the Titans. Yes, there’s more of the same. Magnificent monsters, epic vistas, and another do-or-die mission for Sam Worthington’s Perseus. The timeline is a decade on from the original, and he has longer hair and a son, but his wife Io is gone, and losing Gemma Arterton from any sequel is like taking a wheel off a car. It’ll still move, but less efficiently.
Ralph Fiennes does return as the evil Hades (not so evil this time), and once more the style is pure Lord of the Rings, only with a fire-breathing, two-headed lion/bat-winged monster as one of the creatures up for slaying. So basically lots of running, grunting, slashing left and right, narrowly escaping conflagration or exploding rocks. Perseus is of course the son of a god, and has mad skills as the kids say. Sadly he’s lacking Mads Mikkelsen, who was one of the greatest aspects of Titans 2010.
“Really fun”
This time Perseus has to rescue dad, Zeus, who has been kidnapped. Yes, an actual god can be abducted and chained up apparently.
There’s an okay set piece with a group of cyclopses, but things are really fun when Bill Nighy’s Hephaestus turns up, hailing from Leeds or Lancashire it seems. And great to see clockwork owl Bubo from the 1981 Clash.
The effects are pretty impressive, especially when Perseus and Pegasus are soaring and landing.
And the labyrinth, inevitably featuring the Minotaur, is a great action scene. The beast itself is terrifying and terrific in equal measure.
An added bonus this time round is Rosamund Pike as Andromeda, a sort of jolly hockey sticks head girl warrior. (Alexa Davalos played Andromeda in the reboot). Pike always adds gravitas to any fantasy, and does a fine job grounding this sequel.
Just a shame the character is so reminiscent of Miranda Otto’s LOTR heroine Eowyn. And Zeus become so much like Gandalf the White at one point, it feels like one of those new-fangled AI movie-making programmes has remade Peter Jackson’s LOTR with a different cast.
“On the money”
Like its progenitor, this has just the right run time, clocking in at a little under 100 minutes. And it’s clear the filmmakers left the door open for a third movie… Revenge of the Titans… which never happened.
The extras include a wonderfully honest 2024 interview with producer Basil Iwanyk, who discusses the original Clash, the awful 3D conversion of the reboot, and that third unmade movie.
He’s also on the money when he states the 1981 Clash wasn’t all that. I remember being a bit let down by it in the summer of ‘81, probably because the hype had been so huge.
Again in HD, Wrath is visually stunning stuff; there’s real texture to the dust, stone, smoke and rock. And this was a decade ago, so nice to see it hasn’t aged as badly as some CG heavy movies do.
