Wrath of the Titans

An Open Letter to the Makers of Wrath of the Titans

To whom it may concern:

            Before I delve into the reasons for writing this letter, I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed your movie’s sole lesson. It was the best example of how not to film an historical epic that I have ever witnessed.  Unfortunately, I do have a few problems with your film.

            By ‘a few’ I mean ‘your entire movie.’

First off, the acting is terrible.  Sam Worthington reprises his role as Perseus, the bastard son of Zeus and a human woman.  You know what?  I don’t remember ANY of the demigods being this goddamn emo.  You might as well have gotten Robert Smith to play the lead.  Then you get Liam Neeson to slum it as Zeus, and by slumming I mean that even his most ridiculous action film is still Shakespeare compared to the lines he’s forced to deliver.   Plus, you somehow get Ralph Fiennes to show up again as Hades!  I can only hope that he’s using the money from this movie to buy as much drugs/alcohol/women as it takes to forget he ever agreed to show up to the set.

Then you go and cast, what, three women for the entire movie?  Believe it or not, there were more Olympian Goddesses in our pantheon than there are women in this ‘epic action film!’  The only female with more than three lines is Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), and she’s pretty much an afterthought.  The only reason they added her to is because someone realized that Wrath of the Titans was turning into a homoerotic action movie.  (Actually, this would have given it an added dimension and maybe something to think about, rather than just turning it into such a substandard shitfest.) 

Not a single one of these characters is remotely interesting; some of them look downright bored.  Nobody else is worth mentioning, and that’s probably for the best.  (Yes, I am deliberately avoiding acknowledging The Navigator, because I’d like to forget about him as much as the second half of your film did.)  The less recognized every one of these poor actors are from this film, the better their chances of continued employment in Hollywood.

            Now, about those Gods.  According to your ‘plot’ the Gods are dying but still immortal while the Titans are completely immortal.  Yet we need to kill the resurrected immortal Titan.  Meanwhile, the immortal Gods require prayer or they can die.  Which I guess means that they’re immortal in the Highlander sense?  Then you go on to ignore the existence of all but four Gods and one Titan (at least you picked the right one.  Was that intentional or completely by accident?)  Oh yeah, and you also name-drop Athena, so good on you I suppose.  Congratulations on remembering that powerful women existed in ancient Greece.

            Okay.  So now you have the ‘big three’ in Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, and you threw in Ares and…that’s it.  Dead you mean to poorly imply that every other God in the entire pantheon is dead?  What the hell?  So all the soldiers still pray to Ares, but no alcoholics bother to pray to Dionysius?  Your version of Greece has no prostitutes or lonely teenage virgins, so Aphrodite has just up and disappeared?  Nobody’s giving birth anymore, so the Greeks stopped praying to Hera?  Oh yeah, I’m sure she’d love that.  Have you SEEN Hera when she’s pissed?  The only God I’m not surprised you left out was Apollo, what with him being the God of education and you guys having obviously skipped over the whole ‘know your subject matter’ part of storytelling.

            Which brings me back to a previous point.  You mention that a God stays powerful because of the prayers of his followers, and the less people pray the less power the God has.  Why then do you abandon that entire plot point when it would actually be useful?  “Oh hey guys, Zeus could totally use a hand, why don’t we have this army of thousands offer up a quick prayer, thus instantly zapping him with power?”  No, of course not, because then the fight scene wouldn’t happen the way you want it to!

            This leads me to my final comment.  Your fight scenes are shit, and your movie is boring because of it.  It’s obvious that whoever made this movie had no idea how to write dialog, inspire actors or maintain any sort of cohesion in a story.  So the least you could have done was make the fight scenes amazing and keep them coming.

            Nope!  Fuck that!  Five fights in a two hour movie and everything else is bad emoting and shitty conversations.  Then, when you finally get to a fight, the camera wanders off in the worst imitation of a Bourne film I have ever witnessed.  Add that to the fact Wrath of the Titans seems to have been filmed with a thick orange sheet over the camera lens, and you have the most confusing (yet boring) and nausea-inducing action sequences of all time!

            Next time you decide to make a film that involves pre-established mythology of any kind, please attempt to make a good story out of what already exists.  If that fails, please try to make a story that makes sense.  If you cannot do that, then you have no business being a writer or a director.

Thank you,

Hermes

P.S. We’re not dead, assholes, but you’re dead to us.

P.P.S. If we were to die, we would totally explode, not turn into a pillar of sand.  This is the only instance in the history of film where Michael Bay would have done a better job.