Prime Time: Wrath Of The Titans (2012)

I can understand why people got upset when the news broke that we were getting a remake of the beloved Clash Of The Titans. I still ended up watching it, and I didn’t mind it. In fact, I eventually bought the double-pack that included both that film and this film in fun 3D. I have had that set sitting on my shelf for at least five years, and this week I decided that I should finally watch the second movie. There was probably some subconscious reason for that, considering the fact that the film is . . . well, we will get to the full critique shortly.

Perseus (Sam Worthington) is trying to live a peaceful life with his son. That peace is ruined, sadly, when his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), gets himself in big trouble. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) has seen the writing on the wall - gods losing power, the titans almost set to break back through to their realm - and wants to end up on the winning side. He also has help from Ares (Edgar Ramírez), the son of Poseidon. It is up to Perseus to ensure that humanity survives, and he is soon joined by another demi-god, Agenor (Toby Kebbell), and the fierce warrior queen, Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). They will have to fierce a variety of huge and deadly enemies, including a cyclops or two, a minotaur, and at least one of the intimidating titans.

Written by Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (billed here as David Leslie Johnson), this should have been a much better, and much easier, film to craft. Moving a step or two away from the beloved original, all it had to do was take a handful of familiar characters and throw them into something spectacular and fun. I guess that is the aim here, but it just doesn’t work, mainly due to the weakness of the villains and the feeling that the structure is just a pale retread of the previous film. 

It doesn’t help that director Jonathan Liebesman is now at the helm. While far from the worst person to take on the role of director, he seems to bring nothing unique to any of his projects. He can sometimes emulate better films informing his own, at best, but he usually just delivers something that lacks any hint of style or proper authorship. If you are asked next week to name the director of this movie then I would put good money on you not being able to remember his name. And the same goes for every other film he has directed.

The cast is quite a mixed bag, but the good far outnumbers the bad. Unfortunately, the bad includes our leading man, Sam Worthington. I don’t mind Worthington, and he’s certainly not awful, but almost every other actor that he shares screentime with does a better job. Except Ramírez, sadly, which makes him a sorely unentertaining villain. Neeson and Fiennes have fun in their godly roles, Danny Huston is welcome for the minute he is onscreen, and both Kebbell and Pike are excellent additions to the ensemble. There’s also a very small role for Bill Nighy, who almost steals the entire movie with his wonderful turn.

There is an over-reliance on CGI once again, as expected, and the cinematography focuses on dirt and flames to the detriment of anything more visually interesting, but the runtime isn’t bloated, the pacing is brisk enough, and it’s always fun to see the creatures featured here that were previously so well-realised in a pre-CGI world by the legendary Ray Harryhausen.

I was still tempted to rate this as ever-so-slightly above average, because I didn’t hate it while it was on, but it’s just too forgettable, too bland, and disappointing for being a waste of such a good opportunity. So I will consider myself generous enough already by rating it as absolutely average.

5/10

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

For anyone with far too much time on their hands, here are reviews for the previous Turtle-tastic flicks.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.
TMNT.

Yes, it's yet another reboot for our heroes in a half-shell. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had a long, fruitful life in various guises, from their comic origins to the movies to the cartoon show to lunchboxes, toys and other merchandise, and I can't see that stopping any time soon. Having said that, things didn't look good for this movie. The very first trailer was received with a large amount of disdain, and outright hatred in some quarters. Michael Bay was producing (allowing for more people to rant, once again, about him somehow being the most evil thing to happen to movies since pan & scan). And the director was a man who can claim that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning remains his best movie. Throw Megan Fox into the mix (hey, I like her, but many don't) and you seem to have a recipe for disaster.

April O'Neil (Fox) is a reporter who seems to be stuck with the lighter items, despite working hard to pick up a serious news story. She thinks she may have something special on her hands when she sees some vigilantes taking on the violent Foot Clan, trained baddies who have been terrorising the city. Unfortunately, when she sees them up close she sees four large turtles. Nobody is going to believe her, of course, but that doesn't stop her from pursuing the story. Accompanied by a cameraman (Will Arnett), April heads along to visit local celebrity business mogul, Eric Sacks (William Fichtner). And then Shredder pops up to cause even more trouble. Fights happen. There are big action moments. And viewers may roll their eyes, as I did, at a section of the film showing how the turtles developed into the teenage mutant ninjas that we now know them as.

There are one or two things that this film does get right. First of all, the human cast works well. Fox is a decent April O'Neil, and her character is pleasingly proactive throughout the movie, Arnett is always good fun (and provides some amusement here), Fichtner is great, and it was good to see Whoopi Goldberg back in a major release, albeit in nothing more than a cameo role. Tohoru Masamune doesn't do too badly as the main, famous villain, while Minae Noji somehow makes a good impression as his main henchwoman, despite being treated quite badly by the weak script.

Some of the action in the first half of the movie works well. People will undoubtedly complain about the levels of lighting and the editing, but the film IS showing characters who are ninjas. The clue is there in the title, making the flurried fighting under cover of darkness perfectly acceptable, and enjoyable.

And then we have the runtime. At about 100 minutes, approximately, this manages to distance itself slightly from the modern trend of the blockbusters that run for at least two hours. Well, it WOULD, if it didn't feel like a much longer movie, thanks to the interminable dullness of it all.

That's all I can think of. A few of the lines will raise a smirk, but just as many will raise groans from viewers (both familiar and unfamiliar with the characters). The script, by Josh Appelbaum, Evan Daugherty, and Andre Nemec, feels as if it doesn't know what it wants to be. A fun film, in line with the past movies that many enjoyed, or a serious reboot, adding a sharpness and grit to the characters. It subsequently fails to be either.

Jonathan Liebesman directs with some competence, I guess. But he seems to be just as unsure of how to handle the material as the writers. Some of the rapport between the main characters does work, but an awful lot of it just falls flat. And as for the big set-pieces in the second half of the movie. Unfortunately, I think they're some of the dullest and most irritating that I've sat through in some time (in a mainstream cinema release, anyway). Everything soon starts to become tiresome, as those making the film opt to please the audience by just throwing more and more effects and noise onscreen, and hoping that something sticks.

Symptomatic of everything that's wrong with modern, soulless, cinema at its worst, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has already been successful enough to have a sequel greenlit. Which makes me incredibly sad, despite the fact that there are a lot of other world problems I should be focusing on.

4/10

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