Sunday afternoon, after a pleasant trip to the zoo, my sweetie-wife and I went to the movies to catch Wrath of The Titans, a sequel the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans was a fun popcorn romp, with lots of nice fantasy elements strung along a fairly thin father/son plot. I enjoyed it enough to buy the blu-ray when it was released.

Wrath of the Titans is not as good and if you thought that Clash of the Titans suffered from a think plot, brace yourself for the lack of plot that is Wrath of The Titans.

Ten years have passed since the first film and our hero Peruses, is a simple fisherman raising his son alone. Immortal Io appears to have become mortal after all. Zeus arrives in the rumbling throated glory that is Liam Neeson seeking Peruses’ aid. Trouble is afoot and the gods are not powerful enough to stop it because men have stopped worshiping them. War, death, and the end of the universe are coming unless Peruses helps. Because Peruses has read hisCampbellhe refuses the quest. The godly war come to the sleepy fishing village and Peruses decides that saving the universe is something he can get behind after all.

There follows a quick assembling of the team, Peruses, hero, Navigator, comedic relief and lesser demi-god, Andromeda warrior woman and love interest. Together they search out the plot coupons for this adventure, racking up experience points with a massive battle every ten minutes.  Soon they are high enough level to play in the epic level handbooks and the end the movie with a battle that can only be called titanic.

Oh there’s some other stuff in this movie, brothers fighting brothers, a fine performance by the terribly talented Bill Nighy as a somewhat insane god, and a bit of world saving when gods fights a titan, but that’s about it.

This movie really felt like a high powered D&D games with lots and lots of fighting and very little spell casting. That’s fine, even great, around a table top sweating out your final hit points as the DM gathers up way too many dice for the next attack, but for a film you need a little more. You need a story and not just plot coupons.

This is a spectacle, but don’t pay more than matinee for admission.