Perseus! Ay sus! : Wrath of The Titans Review
Posted by Mihk Vergara on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 in Images, Mihk Vergara, Reviews, Trailers
Much like how Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon can be queued up to score Wizard of Oz, so too can Pedicab’s Shinji Ilabas Mo Na Ang Helicopter can be queued up to score Wrath of the Titans. It’s a kick to hear Ang Pusa Mo’s litany of ‘Ay Sus!’ punctuate Perseus’ heroic deeds.
Not scene for scene, but still.
Set years after the first movie, we find that Sam Worthington’s Perseus is now living the life of a fisherman with his son, Helius. Persues is now a single parent and all is well. Until Zeus (Liam Neeson) shows up. Zeus explains that it is the twilight of the gods, and man’s age is fast approaching. But before that can happen, there are forces at work that threaten all of existence. The old gods need all the support they can get. Perseus refuses his father. When Zeus is captured in a double cross by Hades (Ralph Finnes) and Ares (Edgar Ramirez), the gates of hell are opened and Cronos, father of the gods is poised to return, threatening everything. Since that includes Perseus’ son, Perseus sallies forth to try and stop the impending chaos.
What Wrath of the Titans fails to do, is completely embrace the spirit that makes the original source material, or any good adventure movie for that matter, enjoyable. These are tales of derring do, of heroics of wonder and awe of the fantastic. There is action, adventure and there is comedy. Wrath is hell bent on exhuding baditude and grit for a story that doesn’t need it. It’s not a Nine Inch Nails video, it’s a supposed to be a greek epic.
It knows this, and there are smatterings of that fun filled adventure movie trying to break free. Agenor (Toby Kebell), easily the best new character of the movie, exudes the roguish charm that should be had by the hero of this joint. Instead we get Sam Worthington in a mullet. Scenes with Agenor give us a taste of what the movie would’ve been like if it fully embraced the fun: enjoyable and with an earnestness that complements all the father/son/sins of the father issues instead of making it more dramatic that it should be.
That’s when Pedicab comes in.
In the absence of fun, sticking Pedicab into your ears for the fight scenes makes the movie more enjoyable than it has any right to be. I’m not doing this to be intentionally mean to the movie, mind you. I’m just giving you a heads up in case you’re forced to pay for the sucker instead of watching it on its intended medium: HBO. Wrath of the Titans, at the very least, has the potential to become another Con Air, a movie that wasn’t really very good in hindsight but became memorable and enjoyable enough to ask for multiple viewings. It was fun, and injected Sweet Home Alabama into the consciousness of a generation who didn’t know and much less spell Lynrd Skynyrd .
In many ways, the OST of Con Air is as memorable as the film itself. It reflected the combination of genres into one awesome piece of entertainment; it complemented it. By playing Pedicab while watching Wrath, you crank up the fun to 11. It makes the movie silly, but the film is already unintentionally silly enough on its own with its strange mix of accents, re-casting of characters we don’t even remember, God of war generic villains, and Sam Worthington’s ability to suck any emotion from a scene. Even now I can’t watch any of the Sam Worthington Titans movies without hearing Perseus sung as ‘Ay Sus!’, and that’s a good thing. It made two easily forgettable movies into a meme to rock the ages, providing me with hours of what if enjoyment.
Wrath of the Titans is a serviceable movie, one that is below average, but has the potential to be enjoyable. Just like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room there’s a strange level of enjoyment you get by subverting the original intentions of the movie in a bid to make it enjoyable.
And I guess that’s the point of the review: In the face of something that’s only mildly enjoyable, you start inventing things to make it enjoyable. Mine just happens to be scoring it with Pedicab.
What’s yours?
PARA SA MGA TAMAD MAGBASA:
An enjoyable movie is buried under layers of shit. You’ll have to use your imagination for it to come out.
