Movie reviews
He is the son of Zeus, a proven hero and demi-god in the pantheon of Greek mythology, but having bested men and gods in Clash of the Titans (2010), all Perseus (Sam Worthington) wants as (12A) begins is a quiet life. Unfortunately, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Ares (Edgar Ramirez) have other ideas, kidnapping Zeus (Liam Neeson) and draining the King of the Gods of his power in the underworld of Tartarus, the better to feed the vengeful wrath of Kronos, the Lord of the Titans who has been imprisoned since being deposed by Zeus and his brothers.
This sequel to the remake of the kitsch classic from 1981 is full of incident and action, director Jonathan Liebesman choreographs the many and varied battle scenes with a relentless, forceful energy, and the mise-en-scene is appropriately grubby, gritty and dark. You do wonder, however, why the makers of the Titans movies have so little faith in the stories of Greek mythology. Happy to employ characters such as Perseus, Zeus, Hephaestus (Bill Nighy) and Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), they do away with all but the most basic elements of the myths’ storylines, and attempt to impose a contemporary morality on an ancient value system. Even more irritating is the regular eruptions of supposedly self-deprecating humour, such as Nighy’s third-rate Spike Milligan take on the crippled god Hephaestus, or Toby Kebbell’s Cockney wide-boy demi-god Agenor, which serve as knowing winks to the audience as to how seriously (or not) we’re all supposed to be taking this guff about heroes, gods and monsters. Perhaps that’s the underlying problem with the Titans series: it doesn’t believe in itself, and gives the audience precious little reason to believe in it either. It might be instructive for the Titans makers to take a quick squint at the Lord of the Rings movies. Exactly what Peter Jackson might craft from the Greek myths were he ever given a turn at the helm is giddying to contemplate.
