Doing your taxes is horrible. Turbotax, that makes it easy.
Having a beautiful woman do them for you also makes it easy. My plan to reward
said gorgeous woman? A dinner from a nowhere DC pizza joint, some candlesticks
and two lit candles. A 3-D late showing of Wrath of the Titans on a night you
have to wake up early? That too.
I rediscovered the Clash of the Titans remake, which I
didn’t particularly care about when I saw it, years later (not even two to be
less exact.) I became obsessed with it because the DVD of it I bought is one of
the few that just loops the film if you pass out watching it, thus making it
one of my favorite movies to fall asleep to. In a word, it comforted me. Also,
I love Gemma Arterton.
I must’ve subjected my girl to this movie dozens of times
over the years, and became super hyped when the cleverly titled Wrath of the
Titans decided to become a reality.
The bad news? Gemma Arterton was out. The happiest moments of the first
film (and due to the way I watched it, one I rarely saw) is the ending, where
Zeus, after being a prick to his half-mortal son Perseus, rewards his son with
bringing the cursed and beautiful Io back to life, for his son to presumably
settle down with. That is literally the last scene of the first movie.
Naturally I was curious how this would be addressed. An interesting side note
about this ending is that much of the advertising and some of the film itself
seems to suggest that Perseus would go for a random princess, however he never
shows any interest in her.
The biggest mistake I made for Wrath of the Titans was
getting 3-D tickets. The 3-D for the first film is infamous for kicking off
many debates over whether 3-D was worth it, or any good, or necessary. The postproduction
3_D conversion of the first film should’ve remained in my mind, but I forgot. I
also forgot that drinking before a 3-D movie makes it hard to see.
But that doesn’t matter. The first scene of the movie is
Perseus looking sad but stoic over Io’s grave, which is a shitty rectangle of
stone that says “Io” on it. I wanted to throw a rock at the screen. It turns
out that 10 years had passed (the first movie came out two years before) and
after giving birth to a son, Io died because she had to go be in Hansel and
Gretel: Witch Hunters. Perseus lives solitarily in a crowded fishing village
(see how that makes sense?) and is just trying to live down his heroic past and
raise his son. Then I think some dick relative (Aries, I looked it up after
writing this sentence) of Zeus or Hates or both decides to release the Titan who
fathered the gods from the first movie.
I say release because the sons of this Titan locked him up so they could
be powerful. Original Titans like Poseidon are being killed to make way for the
generation they fathered. Apparently history repeats itself. Perseus becomes
involved because Aries sends monsters to destroy his village and kidnap his
son, both of which are things that happen.
The quest to get the son back is sadly the most entertaining
part. Bill Nighey plays a good guy for once, and there is an awesome Minotaur
maze that ends with Perseus prison-shanking the Minotaur to death, resulting in
the only scene someone emotes in. The actual Titan-freeing sequence made my head hurt. I think
I fell asleep and woke up at this part. The Titan that is freed, Kronos, is
basically a giant smoke and fire monster that is a complete rip-off of the
Balroug (did I spell that right? Spell check says no) from Fellowship of the
Ring. It somehow is defeated in a way that involves Zeus and Hades sacrificing
themselves. Also why do pieces of entertainment insist on spelling ‘C’ words
with ‘K’s?
Here is the biggest piece of bullshit about this movie.
Hades killed Perseus’ adopted human fishing family (“Another day! Nothing!” RIP
Pete Postlethwaite) in the first film, and they are all good at the end of this
movie. In both real life and the movies, that should be a blood feud that spans
“Decoration Day” worthy family feuds, not some shit you pound it out on ten
years and two hours later. The only good part of this movie is the Minotaur
shanking. And the part where I got to leave and pretend that I had only seen
the first one, and that in some straw hut on the ocean Io and Perseus live and
just bang all day long.
But the funny thing is I hated Clash of the Titans kind of
too after I saw it, and only after it was on demand for free on HBO did I
bother to check it out again. That was lightning in a bottle, however. I have
had to stop myself from looking at Wrath of the Titans again, because it is the
most disappointing sequel I have ever seen. Another trip to the movies!
Nothing!
