TheRetroCritic

I knew it! You remember how ass Clash Of The Titans was? Man, now THAT was one boring-ass blockbuster completely with near-absent 3D, blank characters and a serious lack of imagination. When the trailer for Wrath Of The Titans came out, I was surprised: this actually looked like a film! It looked like they might just have fixed the original film's shortcomings... And lo and behold: they did! Wrath Of The Titans is exactly what Clash should have been: a cool, stylish action movie that throws everything at you leaving you feeling all pumped-up, ready to punch an eagle in its stupid face. Non-event Sam Worthington's back but this time he's got a better haircut and a lot more stuff to do so we thankfully get very little of him being essentially a potato from which sounds come out of. The look of the film is much grittier and dustier making the action sequences feel much less like plain CGI fests and more like big, impressive, fuck-off scenes that actually do deserve t

Getting The Bat back on track was a long time coming but I guess it had to happen. Leaving a once thriving franchise in tatters, with millions of fans still shell-shocked and trembling at the very thought of an Arnold Schwarzenegger ice pun, would have been too cruel. So Christopher Nolan ( Memento , Insomnia ) stepped in, bringing with him a darker, grittier style usually suited to gloomy thrillers. Starting from the top, Nolan re-introduced the character completely from his origins all the way to him becoming Gotham City's saviour. This meant no Joker killing Bruce Wayne's parents (petty robber Joe Chill doing the deed instead) and a lot of time spent with Wayne being a ninja trained by Liam Neeson as part of the League Of Shadows, a vigilante group led by Ra's Al Ghul. The second half of the film would be pure entertainment. Batman in Gotham kicking ass, or at least trying to. The villains he faces include Falcone, a mob boss played by Tom Wilkinson, whose accent

Ok, remember how boring and soulless Clash Of The Titans was? Wow. ACTUALLY badass. Well, we shall see... Lets not build a false myth!  *canned laughter*

This cliché-ridden thriller co-penned by Luc Besson may not be great poetry, it may not have one drop of originality flowing through its veins and it may not be particularly memorable...but it does have Liam Neeson kicking major ass in a way rarely seen from him since Darkman . The film itself has the same plot as, say, every B movie thriller ever made: ex badass loses daughter to gangsters, has to get her back, goes on rampage. If you've seen any Steven Seagal film, Commando or even Edge of Darkness , then you'll know the score. And as clichéd and predictable as it is, it's all worth it to see Neeson electrocute a guy to death and deliver Clint Eastwood-style tough guy lines with an effortless grumble. Brainless but strangely satisfying fast-food action cinema.