When Titans Ruled the Earth: Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans (Limited Edition Blu-ray Set)

The Films:

Back in 2010, Warner Bros. took a rather large gamble on a remake of the 1981 classic "Clash of the Titans," a film that didn't have a great critical reception, but did extremely well at the box office. While their remake had a somewhat similar response from critics, luckily for them, it also found a similar smashing success at the box office, accumulating nearly half a billion dollars worldwide. Inevitably, this was quickly followed by a sequel known as "Wrath of the Titans," but this time, not only did it receive the same poor reception from critics, but it also fell far short of the original's box office take, forcing the cancellation of any further sequels.

While the critics may not have liked either film very much, they both certainly had their fair share of fans that did. Therefore, to celebrate these mini epics, Arrow Films is releasing a new limited edition set containing both films ("When Titans Ruled the Earth"), packed with special features, making it the perfect time to revisit them and see how well they hold up, so let's dive right in.

As "Clash of the Titans" opens, we learn all about the backstory of how the gods defeated the Titans using Hades' monster known as the Kraken. Afterward, they divided the world among themselves, with Zeus (Liam Neeson) ruling the skies, Poseidon ruling the oceans, and Hades (Ralph Fiennes) being tricked into ruling the underworld. Later on, Zeus creates humans, whose prayer sustains the gods' immortality, but when a king leads a revolt against them, Zeus takes the opportunity to sleep with his wife, conceiving a demigod known as Perseus, who is raised by a fisherman and his wife after the death of his mother.

18 years later, Perseus (Sam Worthington) witnesses soldiers destroying a statue of Zeus, officially declaring war on the gods. In retaliation, Hades kills the soldiers and Perseus' parents, which leads to the young man being brought to Argos, whose rulers are throwing a celebration for their war against the gods. Hades reappears and declares that if their princess isn't sacrificed to the Kraken in ten days, it will destroy their city, ultimately leading Perseus to begin a desperate quest to uncover the weakness of the monster and hopefully save the city before time runs out.

For those that remember the original 1981 classic starring Harry Hamlin, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Dame Maggie Smith, you may recall that it wasn't exactly a particularly great film, but what it was was a rather entertaining film that somewhat reveled in its silliness, while providing equally amusing stop-motion special effects from the great Ray Harryhausen. The 2010 remake is kind of the same deal, only with improved special effects. The upgrade from stop-motion to digital effects does unfortunately take away a lot of the film's campiness, which the original film had in abundance, but it does help provide some decent action scenes nonetheless (including their own take on the encounter with Medusa).

As far as the story goes, if you look at it too closely, you'll see that it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense (Zeus goes along with Hades' plan against the revolting humans, but helps out his son to thwart said plan, only to arrive at the most obvious of betrayals), but I suppose you could simply chalk that up to the writers wanting to pay homage to the aforementioned campiness of the original. Bottom line, just like the original, it's hardly a great film, but it does provide a decent bit of entertainment as it proceeds with its silly plot, and while it may not have quite as many heavy-hitters in the cast, they still managed to get a pair of Oscar nominees as the main gods. It's basically the kind of movie where, if you're just looking for a fun, quick little action outing, it'll likely be just enough to fit the bill.

Moving on to "Wrath of the Titans," the film picks up ten years after the events of "Clash," with Perseus (Sam Worthington) living a quiet life as a fisherman with his son Heleus (John Bell). Zeus (Liam Neeson) pays him a visit to warn him that the gods are losing their powers and becoming mortal, and as a consequence, the walls of Kronos' prison are breaking down. Perseus decides to stay with his family, leading Zeus to get together with his brother Poseidon (Danny Huston) and his son Ares (Édgar Ramírez) in an effort to convince his other brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) to help repair the walls of the prison. Hades refuses, and with the help of Ares, captures Zeus in order to steal his powers for Kronos. Poseidon is barely able to escape and tell Perseus what happened, once again putting the demigod on an epic quest to not only save his father, but humanity as well.

"Wrath of the Titans" is where things sadly take a bit of a downturn. The story here is even more nonsensical than before (really bad things are happening that Zeus completely failed to mention as a possibility before, while he inexplicably reaches out to Hades for help after his brother's terrible betrayal in the previous film), but what ends up hurting it the most is that it's just not nearly as fun, entertaining, or balanced as "Clash" had been. The half-baked storyline seems as though it was just there to serve as a template for the bland action sequences, which take up much of the 90-minute duration. "Clash" not only had better action scenes, but it also balanced them better with the film's storyline, not allowing them to take over the film and turn it into something monotonous.

With "Wrath," it appears that the rush to get a sequel out after the success of the first film led to them cutting a lot of corners to make it happen, going a long way towards explaining its multiple shortcomings. It still has a pretty good cast, with Oscar nominees Neeson & Fiennes reprising their roles, and the addition of two more future Oscar nominees with Rosamund Pike and Bill Nighy, but there just isn't much here for them to work with. If they had taken their time, they very likely could've come up with something just as entertaining as "Clash," but it ultimately just goes to show that rushing a sequel off the assembly line is only going to hurt the final product in the end.

What we end up with here is a very curious pair of films: One that's a silly, but decent bit of fun, and another that appears to have been a victim of unfortunate circumstances that stopped it from reaching its potential as an entertaining follow-up, which in a sense is actually still intriguing to watch just to see the result of the aforementioned rush and the dichotomy it produces between the two. There was no reason that a "Clash" remake should've worked and no reason that a sequel to it shouldn't have, but somehow those are the results we got, leaving us to wonder which way the scales would've tipped had they been allowed another, hopefully more thought-out, attempt.

Video/Audio:

This 2-disc set comes with "Clash of the Titans" presented in a 2.39:1, 1080p High Definition transfer and "Wrath of the Titans" presented in a 1.85:1, 1080p High Definition transfer, both of outstanding quality. The films are remarkably sharp and clear throughout their durations, highlighting their grand special effects. Likewise, the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks for both films are marvelous, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in excellent quality. Overall, they both simply look & sound fantastic, with no complaints to be had in either area.

Special Features:

Clash of the Titans

Scaling Mount Olympus (21 Minutes)

Sam Worthington is Perseus (4 Minutes)

Zeus: Father of Gods and Men (2 Minutes)

Enter the World of Hades (4 Minutes)

Calibos: The Man Behind the Monster (3 Minutes)

Tenerife: A Continent on an Island (4 Minutes)

Scorpioch (4 Minutes)

Actors and Their Stunts (4 Minutes)

Wales: A Beautiful Scarred Landscape (3 Minutes)

Bringing Medusa to Life (4 Minutes)

Prepare for the Kraken! (4 Minutes)

Sam Worthington: An Action Hero for the Ages (8 Minutes)

Alternate Ending (5 Minutes)

Deleted Scenes (18 Minutes)

Wrath of the Titans

Unleashing the Beasts (14 Minutes)

Who Are the Titans? (3 Minutes)

Hephaestus: God of Fire (3 Minutes)

Lost in Tartarus' Labyrinth (3 Minutes)

Creatures of the Titans (4 Minutes)

Battling the Chimera (4 Minutes)

Agenor: The Other Demi-God (3 Minutes)

The Cyclops Fight (4 Minutes)

Prison of the Titans (4 Minutes)

Minotaur: The Human Nightmare (3 Minutes)

The Heavens Raise Hell on Earth (4 Minutes)

Deleted Scenes (11 Minutes)

Both films come with a vast collection of extras ("Clash" has about 90 minutes total, while "Wrath" has about an hour total), including brand new interviews with producer Basil Iwanyk, a multitude of archival featurettes that cover pretty much every behind the scenes element you could want to know more about, and a hefty portion of deleted scenes. Definitely more than enough great material here for fans to dig into.

Conclusion:

Arrow Films' new special edition set "When Titans Ruled the Earth: Clash of the Titans and Wrath of the Titans" presents a pair of fascinating films, one that works decently as a silly bit of entertainment and another that doesn't quite live up to the fun, entertaining standards set by its predecessor. However, even with its faults, the sequel still provides an intriguing example of what happens when you try to rush a sequel into theaters too quickly, and with everything else considered (the multitude of extras in particular), this balances out to be a pretty good set that any fan of these films (or similar entries of the genre) would enjoy.

Score: 3.5/5

Available on Limited Edition Blu-ray starting tomorrow.

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