Simply A Masterpiece

One of my all time favorites.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I saw this film during its original release and recently saw it again. It wasn't quit as transporting for me now as when I was back in high school but it is still lots of fun. Greek mythology along with the handiwork of the great Ray Harryhausen resulted in some wonderful characters coming to life. The Medusa sequence is still as great today as when I originally saw it. A solid cast with the lone weak link being the princess, who was about as bland and uninteresting as they come. It's clearly not for everyone but if you enjoy stop-animation and a fantastical story based on Greek mythology then you should definitely check this out.

When my Sixth Grade class was studying Ancient Greece in history class, we watched this movie. As the competitor to Star Wars, its stop motion animated creatures and effects were a bit dated but it worked as Ray Harryhausen's last film. We get the story of Perseus, demigod son of Zeus, and his quest to save the princess Andromeda from certain doom. Avoid the remake and its followup and see this! It's got some family friendly moments though some of the scenes may be a little dark for young eyes. The creatures were the best part and they have nothing on today's CGI, which seems a little overrated and overdone. This and Jason and the Argonauts should be your movies if you love Greek mythology and want to try a movie based on that theme. Of course, if you want to learn more about that mythology in books, you can always get Percy Jackson. But this is the better version of Clash of the Titans. No spoilers!

This is one of those classic movies that, despite being clunky and laughable by today's über-polished standards, evokes a time in the viewer's life when such trivial details went overlooked in the face of a good-versus-evil, over-the-top, beautifully simple story that gave you a magnificently happy ending.Harry Hamlin didn't have to act or even emote - it was enough just to look at that gorgeous chiseled face and see him scantily clad in a revealing toga. Ursula Andress, despite having only a single line in the whole thing, is beyond exquisite. Good thing, too, since every line in the movie is overblown... because come on people, we're talking Olympian gods and myths here! If, like me, you grew up in the 70s and 80s, this grand operatic gem of a movie gave you a warm fluffy visual treat equivalent to a brownie sundae. Not a nutritious meal, but it left you feeling giddy, slightly overcharged, and ready to believe that syrupy goodness wins out in the end. Handsome hero overcomes seemingly impossible odds, beautiful maiden is swept off her feet by romantic besotted stranger, wise and benevolent adviser offers advice and quips in the background, and all against a backdrop that is as overdone and self-aggrandizing as the acting itself. The music is equally epic and quite hummable when you're stuck in traffic.The entire movie begs you to suspend your disbelief and just accept the story, no matter how awkwardly strung-together it is to those of us who are now sadly spoiled by modern special effects. And it's a sacrifice I make gladly, every time, because like Scully and Mulder I WANT TO BELIEVE. If you were lucky enough to be of an impressionable age when it came out, it made you a believer too.The lurking terror of Medusa's lair, the menace of the Stygian Witches, and the raw overwhelming wish-fulfillment of the whole epic struggle are so charming that the viewer is glad to let go of their adulthood and believe in childish ideals again. Harryhausen delivered monsters that, while not necessarily perfect, were JUST RIGHT for the feeling at hand. A little romantic, perhaps a little forced and silly at times, but isn't that what it's all about? Myths aren't meant to be realistic. That's what makes them myths.Clash of the Titans is a movie version of every child's favorite teddy bear. It may be moth-eaten and grubby by today's standards, but you love that bear anyway and you wouldn't trade it for a thousand new ones. It kept you safe from the monsters under the bed. It gave you hope. It made you believe that all was right with the world. And that's a gift that you never outgrow, and you'll always look past its flaws and remember the comfort it provided when you were young.

Ray Harryhausen has provided the special effects for many movies, some of them quite good. In "Clash of the Titans," however, one gets the feeling that instead of the special effects being used to dramatize the story, the story is guided by the desire to display some special effects. The result is rather lackluster. The story in the movie, however, such as it is, is a big improvement over the original myth. In fact, this movie, when compared to the source material, provides an excellent example of the need to modify ancient tales in order to make them suitable for modern audiences.As for the story in the movie, much is driven by the lunacy of the gods. When the unmarried Danaë has a child (Perseus) out of wedlock, her father, King Acrisius, feels that he and all of Argos have been dishonored by her sin. He is especially put out by the fact that he had locked her in a room where no man could get at her beautiful body, but she got pregnant anyway. (In the original myth, Danaë's son was destined to kill Acrisius, which was his motive for trying to keep her away from men, but in the movie, Acrisius is simply jealous of her beauty.) To purge the dishonor, he condemns his daughter and her child to die in a coffin set adrift at sea. Zeus, it turns out, was the father, having visited Danaë as a shower of gold. Zeus is horrified that Acrisius of Argos would commit a murder, so to punish him, he has Poseidon unleash the Kraken, a sea monster, to wipe out the entire city of Argos.Perseus falls in love with Andromeda, who is under the spell of Calibos, the hideously disfigured son of Thetis. Perseus chops off the hand of Calibos, who then begs his mother for justice. She is reluctant, because she suspects her son wants revenge rather than justice. But when Queen Cassiopeia dares to claim that her daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than Thetis herself, that is just too much. As punishment for insulting her beauty, she demands that Andromeda be sacrificed to the Kraken. Almost as an afterthought, she says that this will give her son justice too. So, Andromeda must be punished for what Perseus did to Calibos as well as for a remark made by her mother Cassiopeia, a remark, by the way, which happens to be spot on. A running theme through all this is that guilt and punishment are not individual matters; instead, punishment may fall on anyone who is associated with the person who committed the misdeed. Unfortunately, such insane notions of justice are frequently found in the myths of ancient religions, and there are still vestiges of such notions even today.Anyway, Perseus has to figure out a way to kill the Kraken and save his beloved Andromeda. After much to do, he learns that he must obtain the head of Medusa, a gorgon whose look will turn any living creature to stone. Perseus chops off her head and returns in time to let the Kraken get a good look at it, turning him to stone. Andromeda is saved, and she and Perseus are married and live happily ever after.Now compare that with the original story. When Perseus set out to get the head of the Medusa, he didn't know Andromeda from Adam. He just needed a wedding present for a king who was getting married. Perseus got the head, put it in a bag, and headed for home, hoping he would be in time for the nuptials. On the way there, he saw the beautiful, naked Andromeda tied to a rock, while being threatened by Cetus, the other name for the sea monster. He decided to save her, but first he made sure nothing happened to his wedding present by putting it behind some rocks for safekeeping. Then he killed Cetus with his sword. Having seen Andromeda naked, he just had to have her, so they got married. Then he grabbed the bag with the head in it and headed off for the wedding that started it all.The story is vastly more complicated than that, especially since different versions stand in contradiction with one another. But the point is that the story in the movie is a definite improvement, and so much so, that it proves that we should not be terribly concerned with how faithful a movie is to the source material, so long as the movie is enjoyable. Unfortunately, "Clash of the Titans," while an improvement over the original myth, is only fair.