Any chance they could release the Kraken again, just for old time’s sake?

Although 2010′s “Clash of the Titans” became a symbol of poorly converted 3-D, it had a catchphrase and advertising hook, a climatic confrontation, a sense of nostalgia because it was a remake of the 1981 original, and a simplicity about it.

Now, two years later almost to the day, sequel “Wrath of the Titans” arrives, and the 3-D is far better, but the story is uninvolving and slightly confusing, adding a new strata of locations along with demigods, fallen gods, giant cyclops and others.

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‘Wrath of the Titans’

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

• Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes.
• Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy violence and action.

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Even the most inattentive or long-ago student might know the names Zeus, Hades and Poseidon (they named a couple of movies after him), but what about Agenor or Hephaestus?

For those who would not pick Greek mythology on “Jeopardy,” Agenor was Poseidon’s demigod son and Hephaestus was a fallen god who forged Zeus’ thunderbolt, Hades’ pitchfork and Poseidon’s trident.

“Wrath” is set a decade after half-man, half-god Perseus (Sam Worthington), the son of Zeus, defeated the beastly Kraken. Perseus’ wife is dead, and he is now living as a fisherman with his cherished 10-year-old boy, Helius.

But when Zeus (Liam Neeson) is imprisoned and in danger of having his powers and life drained away, Perseus is drawn into a series of mythic battles. Even he cannot keep the rest of the world at arm’s length, no matter how much he wants to protect his child.

Perseus confronts a three-headed Chimera, is caught in a labyrinth where the walls literally close in, battles his bitter brother Ares (Edgar Ramirez), who takes his gig as the god of war very seriously, and encounters menacing cyclops, warriors with two heads and six arms each, fireballs and Kronos, the father of Zeus, Hades and Poseidon.

In addition to Mr. Worthington and Mr. Neeson, Ralph Fiennes returns as Hades, ruler of the underworld, and Danny Huston makes another brief appearance as Poseidon. Rosamund Pike replaces “Clash” actress Alexa Davalos as Andromeda while Toby Kebbell is Agenor and Bill Nighy is Hephaestus.

“Wrath,” directed by Jonathan Liebesman (“Battle Los Angeles”), is all about fathers and sons, sons and fathers, and brothers. One key character does an about-face, from condemnation to cooperation in one easy, hard-to-buy scene.

“Wrath” was filmed in 3-D rather than converted, and that makes a huge difference. However, dialogue is sacrificed in the name of action and there’s precious little humor. Even venom is conveyed in colossal fights although Hades says to a prisoner: “You’re sweating like a human. … Next it will be tears.”

The movie needs more of that instead of yet another scene with computer-generated effects, some obvious (flying winged horse, creatures with multiple bodies and heads) and some not so obvious (gods who turn to stone and dust and disappear in seconds).

Making the ultimate enemy a fiery 1,500-foot gargantuan means the face of evil is bloodless. Even action fantasies are only as good as their villains, and this one left me cold.

The latest mythological action movie, Wrath of the Titans, is as clattery and joyless as its predecessor was .

Dir: Jonathan Liebesman. Starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Rosamund Pike, Toby Kebbell, Ralph Fiennes

‘Let’s have some fun,” growls Liam Neeson’s Zeus to Ralph Fiennes’s Hades, as the last in the series of broadly interchangeable action sequences that make up Wrath of the Titans finally grinds into action.

It’s an appealing offer, but a hollow one: the Greek god’s idea of a lark turns out to be striding across an enormous ashen plain, mirthlessly zapping six-limbed baddies with a lightning bolt. In this sequel to 2010’s equally clattery, equally joyless mythological action movie Clash of the Titans, fun is in very short supply.

At least the new film, unlike the first, does actually feature an authentic Titan. The villain of the piece is Kronos, described in Greek legend as the castrator of his father, devourer of his offspring and incestuous impregnator of his sister. However, none of these activities are allowable in a 12A certificate film, so here he is a giant 3D lava monster trapped inside a volcano.

In order to free Kronos, Hades (Fiennes) and Ares (Édgar Ramírez, utterly squandered after Carlos) lure Zeus into the underworld, where they imprison him and channel his powers into the dormant beast. Enter Zeus’s son, the demigod Perseus (Sam Worthington), who has spent the past 10 years living as a humble fisherman and raising his son Helius (John Bell).

It’s up to Perseus, the warrior princess Andromeda (Rosamund Pike, replacing Alexa Davalos) and the navigator Agenor (Toby Kebbell) to free Zeus, dispatch Kronos and thwart the conspirators, while neatly dodging any kind of character or plot development that might threaten to make the story even slightly interesting.

Along the way our heroes meet some middle-aged character actors in fake beards and dressing gowns, including Bill Nighy, who gives Hephaestus a broad Yorkshire accent, and Danny Huston, whose Poseidon calls to mind Gandalf clutching a gardening fork.

Unfortunately, Worthington is just as uncharismatic as he was in the first Titans film, but a few of the performances appeal in isolation without making any noticeable impact on the film’s overall awfulness. Rosamund Pike brings a good dollop of jolly-hockey-sticks gumption, Toby Kebbell channels Russell Brand to deliver some lines that were possibly intended as comic relief, and Lily James gives it some welly in a brief turn as Andromeda’s handmaiden Korrina; as far as I can recall, she is the only other female character to be trusted with both dialogue and a name.

Cinemagoers who have come to expect poor writing in blockbusters may not be surprised by any of this, but what really startles is the way Wrath bungles its main draw: the visuals. Director Jonathan Liebesman opts for the herky-jerky camerawork and rotor-blade editing from his last film, Battle: Los Angeles, but while bitter experience has proven that this style only works in two dimensions, Liebesman has bolted on a third in post-production regardless, which renders many of the action scenes indecipherable. Watching them, I felt as if I was sitting on top of a pneumatic drill, while a bellowing Worthington hurled handfuls of earth in my face.

Admittedly, the final brawl against Kronos is a gas, but that’s largely because it’s an almost shot-for-shot reconstruction of Perseus’s climactic battle with the Kraken in the prequel, which was that film’s only high point.

Wrath of the Titans might position itself as the successor to the equally special effects-driven Ray Harryhausen monster matinées, but it has none of those films’ febrile imagination, meticulous craftsmanship or rollicking sense of fun. Crucially, that’s ”fun’’ in the conventional sense — not the Liam Neeson Zeus sense.