Ungodly.

The legend of Perseus continues in WRATH OF THE TITANS, with the kidnapping of Zeus, the treachery of Ares, the disintegration of Poseidon, and the slaying of the Titan Kronos, just like it says in all the Greek myths…. actually, not in any Greek myths; matter of fact, I’m wondering whether the filmmakers have read even one Greek myth in their wretched lives.

Writers David Johnson, Greg Berlanti and Dan Mazeau seem to be using the George Lucas method of storytelling – Making It Up As It Goes Along – and director Jonathan Liebesman is just encouraging them by having such a big effects budget.

It’s surely a spectacle for the eyes, but set your brain on standby for the magnificently thoughtless plotline.

Demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington), the slayer of the Kraken in CLASH OF THE TITANS 2010, is trying to lead an average mortal’s life as a fisherman in a tiny village – until a Chimera (a two-headed, fire-breathing monster) attacks the village, seemingly for no reason other than the special effects team were bored. Perseus defeats it with no help from all the screaming extras.

Then dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) appears to Perseus  and tells him the gods need his help. In his authentic Australian Greek accent, Perseus asks, “Woy?” Something to do with Making It Up As It Goes Along. Then Zeus teleports outa there in case another fire-breathing thing comes along and he might have to lift a finger to help.

Ares the god of war (Edgar Ramirez) and Hades the god of cheese (Ralph Fiennes) team up to kidnap Poseidon the god of beards (Danny Huston) and Zeus the god of Narnia (wait – isn’t this the guy who can teleport?). They hook Zeus to a divine intravenous rock and start transferring his power to Kronos, who looks like the Catholic version of the horned devil, except he’s ten times bigger than a Balrog and 100 times as dumb. (Though he can only moan one or two words – being fused to the stone of a mountain will leave you pretty inarticulate – he has the distinction of being the one and only actual “Titan” in either of the two films.)

Now Perseus is mad, in the grand tradition of the god Rambo: “This time it’s personal!”

Perseus takes his son Helius (wasn’t Helius/Helios the Sun god who drove his chariot across the sky every morning and– oh, why bother?…) to a temple, where Poseidon uses his teleportation powers to appear and tell them all is lost. Lemme get this straight: he always had the power to teleport (as gods do), but he waited until Hades and Ares bitchbeat him half-to-death before teleporting to a temple where he happened to know Perseus was gonna be? Then he turns to dust – like it says in all the history books.

To rescue Zeus, Perseus recruits the tasty blond ringlets of Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and the arrogant dreadlocks of Poseidon’s son, Agenor (Toby Kebbell), who gets the film’s funniest line when mocking Perseus: “Mighty Kraken slayer. Shouldn’t he be somewhere posing for a statue?” Followed by the film’s dumbest line, when he tells Perseus “Go to Hell!” even though there was no such thing in Ancient Greece.

They sail in search of Hephaestus (Bill Nighy, so whacked out he references his role as Davy Jones in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN to Perseus, “I know you: ‘Release the Kraken’ and all that…”). As the forger of Zeus’ thunderbolt, Hades’ pitchfork and Poseidon’s trident, Hephaestus tells Perseus that combining them will create the Spear of Trium, the only weapon that can defeat Kronus. He also knows the way through the unsolvable Labyrinth to rescue Zeus. (‘Labyrinth’? Did someone say Minotaur?!) In asking for his help, Andromeda bows down before Hep (veeery sexy!) and says something so unutterably stupid that it sounds unutterably stupid even while she’s saying it, with that blind blond ambition glazing her eyes: “…but we humans have hope when there is no hope; and we believe when to believe is idiotic, but sometimes, in spite of everything, we prevail.” Yes, and the “prevailing” is not because of your “hope” or “belief” but due to the actual powers brought to bear on the problem; you prevail not because of hope or belief but in spite of it.

At the head of the labyrinth, Ares appears (teleporting, as gods do) and kills Hephaestus and all the extras, leaving our heroes stranded. But it turns out the Labyrinth isn’t that hard to get through, because they do it in what must be record time, with no jump cuts or dead ends. Oh yeah, and Perseus kills a guy in a BULL HELMET. (Unfortunately, I kid you not.)

As Perseus is rescuing Zeus, Kronos is released, raining lava down on Earth while roaring insatiably, as per Movie Monster Protocol.

Perseus must snatch Zeus’s thunderbolt off Ares’ back to create the Spear of Trium (which is getting kinda Try-ING at this point), so even though he has all Queen Blondie’s warriors at his disposal, why does he afford Ares the “honor” of going mano a mano with him? While Ares shields himself behind Perseus’s son Helius. That’s honorable, right?

Meanwhile, Kronos’s double-bodied demons tear through Blondie’s warriors like the toilet paper they have yet to invent to wipe their terrified asses. Think about it: the demons can only run rampant as long as Kronos is alive. So the *logical* move would be to overrun Ares with a horde of warriors, GET THE SPEAR and throw that bad boy at Kronos, thereby nullifying his armies. Instead, Blondie witlessly battles double-bodied demons (again, we presume, because the special effects department was justifying its budget) while Perseus has to do all the lifting on the spear job.

Perseus eventually gets Ares in a headlock, which proves to be his kryptonite: the God of War can defeat hundreds of men with his big man-club and divine pushing – but he can’t escape a good headlock.

Hades suddenly sees the error of his ways after helping Kronos escape. Now let me get this straight: this entity the size of the Chrysler building promised it would decimate the Earth when it was freed, and now it’s actually doing that. Exactly which part was Hades unclear on?

Kronos is defeated when Zeus and Hades kiss and make up and shoot gay-ass lightning bolts at him to “distract” him, while posing like air-guitar champions. Perseus then does his Luke Skywalker and lobs the Spear of Trium into a hole in Kronos’s mouth not much bigger than a womp-rat.

So the god of war is dead? Who’s responsible for all these wars then? Well, that would be Dick Cheney. And Poseidon is dead? I guess that leaves Aquaman in charge of the seas. And Zeus is dead? Who’s in charge of Everything then? Oh, that’s right, Bill Gates.

Perseus! Slayer of the Kraken! Slayer of Kronos! Not only will we never hear the end of this in songs and legends, he’s got the pick of blond ringleted chicks willing to go GREEK for him!

END

Lycan-nope.

My, what big eyes Amanda Seyfried has!

RED RIDING HOOD is a reimagining of the children’s tale about the talking wolf that eats grandmother. What better way to represent an anthropomorphized lupine than making it – a WEREWOLF?

As this mysterious werewolf stalks a medieval village, we constantly ask ourselves, “Why don’t I feel any foreboding or tension? Why does it all seem like a school play?” Maybe because all the Fear has been leached in favor of the love triangle between three teens. And as we all know, the world revolves around the petty dalliances of Teen Models.

One look at the director of this piece and it all makes sense: Catherine Hardwicke, TWILIGHT. All the better to Chick-Flick you, my dear.

In this TWILIGHT-for-werewolves, Amanda Seyfried is teen Valerie, who loves teen woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have arranged her marriage to village rich kid, teen Henry (Max Irons). Valerie’s grandmother is Julie Christie, who bequeaths her the infamous red riding hood; her parents are Virginia Madsen and Billy Burke. (Yes, that Billy Burke; the father of teen Bella in those vampire movies is the father of teen Valerie in this werewolf movie. Cross-pollination or treason?). Lukas Haas inhabits the middle background as a young priest.

Though the werewolf is regularly appeased by offerings of small animals, it has now killed Valerie’s sister – so her wedding is postponed until the sexy teens can stop being virgins and pouting about “being together” (sound familiar?) – oh, and until the werewolf is killed.

Then Gary Oldman arrives like a Big Bad Wolf. Oldman is Solomon, professional werewolf hunter. And his most interesting tool is his big iron elephant. Not a euphemism, he has a big iron elephant that is a prison for werewolves, and doubles nicely as a torture chamber for annoying teens.

He tells them: The Wolf is someone from the village! Dun dun daaaaar!

The actual Big Bad Wolf effects are blackly and hairily fantastic, as to be expected with the state of technology, and like the fairy tale – it speaks! It inexplicably entreats Valerie to come away with it, which might go towards solving the mystery of who it is. And as we speculate on whether it is blond Henry or brunette Peter (as in Peter and the Wolf?!), the secret is revealed – where else? – at Grandmother’s house.

Problem with this romance-thriller is its PG-13 glaze; the only thing “dark” about it is the village studio set lit as nighttime, and its tween rating means a dearth of sex and violence, all promises and no deliverance. All the better to TWILIGHT you, my dear.

A sensual soundtrack, lush set dressing, and ominous Gary Oldman with silver-tipped fingernails cannot save this movie from being a dog.

END

The Kid Ain’t Kidding.

Little Orphan Poffy

Kids are scary to begin with. Little adults with big heads who pretend they don’t know what we’re saying. They’re like clowns: some people find them fun; most know they’re evil.

So in ORPHAN, when an upscale couple with two children adopt a 9-year-old orphan with scary theme music, familial bliss is not in the flow chart.

Vera Farmiga stars as mother Kate, whose checkered history of alcoholism and a miscarriage – big baggage right there! – is exploited by cherubic orphan child, Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) when she is adopted by the family.

With a strange Russian accent and outdated clothes, Esther also terrorizes the couple’s son Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) and threatens their little deaf daughter, Max, into becoming her accomplice. Aryana Engineer plays Max in a priceless performance; deaf in real life, conveying intense, complex emotions on her face without words, and cutie cute cute). Husband John (Peter Sarsgaard), seemingly Xanaxed to the gills, never notices a thing.

12-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman, mature beyond her years, gives a studied, sinister, Kevin-Spacey-like performance as Esther, making Kate look crazy in all the old formulaic ways: releases the handbrake when little Max is in the car alone, making it look like Kate is irresponsible, cutting Kate’s roses around the shrine of her miscarried child, causing Kate to attack her in front of witnesses and – most disturbingly – breaking her own arm in a vice and accusing Kate of doing it.

Then things get REALLY psycho. Killing nuns and burning down treehouses and breaking a rival kid’s legs… it still doesn’t wake Peter Sarsgaard, although he does find enough wankergy to plonk voluptuous Vera – only to get busted by Esther – twice.

After she gives Esther merely a few rudimentary lessons, piano tutor Kate walks in on Esther playing Tchaikovsky. “You told me you couldn’t play!” Esther replies: “No, I thought you would like to teach me. It must be frustrating for a person who likes music as much as you to have a son who is uninterested and a daughter who is deaf.” Unintentionally hilarious because it has been established the son is a Guitar Hero freak, which means – contrary to popular belief – you are uninterested in music.

Directed by Spanish Jaume Collet-Serra (whose dubious claim to fame is directing Paris Hilton in HOUSE OF WAX, 2005), the niggling problem with ORPHAN is that only during the neat climactic twist is Esther’s motivation revealed – throughout the movie, we watch her perform incredibly dastardly deeds (which includes murder) and wonder what drives her, as she is being treated like a princess. Then again, kids be evil an’ all dat…

END