the audience applauded

Memorable, crazy movie

Lack of good storyline.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

I rented this one summer after seeing some clips on TV and was pleasantly surprised. Stop motion animated creatures, Greek mythology, adventure, action, some likable characters, gods and demigods, and fantasy. If you're tired of those overrated sci-fi films of today and want a good old-fashioned fantasy movie, or if you want to watch a movie about Greek mythology, this should be on your to-do list. This and Clash of the Titans (the original) are the best Ray Harryhausen films, and the best movies on Greek mythology. This was probably the inspiration for the Percy Jackson books, though there were probably other factors too. But like I said, watch it!

The main reason for watching this movie of course is the outstanding work of master animator Ray Harryhausen which includes some of his most memorable creations pitted against Greek hero Jason as he strives to capture the famous Golden Fleece from the other end of the world. In fact, it wouldn't be too far wrong to say Harryhausen's clay-mation constructs act better than many of the human flesh and bone characters they're pitted against here.Amongst the creations are two bothersome Harpies, a giant statue of ancient Titan Thetis which comes dramatically to life, the six-headed Hydra which guards the precious fleece and of course at the climax, the skeleton army born of the Hydra's teeth. These scenes form the highlights of the film, even if the Argonauts don't appear to interact with them too naturally. It's a pity that the production couldn't have enlisted better actors for the main roles, but the poor dubbing of almost all the lead parts doesn't help either. Todd Armstrong as Jason and Nancy Kovack as Medea are as wooden as the Hera figurehead on the front of the Argo with the only half-decent acting coming from British stalwarts, speaking in their own accents too, Laurence Naismith and future Dr Who, Patrick Troughton.The story's not quite as I remember it either (was Hercules an Argonaut?), but the episodic tale sails along nicely enough from one dangerous situation to another. Harryhausen's excellent work does show up other production flaws elsewhere in the movie, especially with some poor back-projection work. The dialogue too was fairly lame throughout, likewise the fight scenes, but it's the special effects which make this film worth watching.

I want to start by saying that Ray Harryhausen's effects in this film are quite brilliant even though I would say they are more an excess than a spectacle. What breaks the illusion of this being a film is the idea that his miniatures that were animated by stop- motion seemed choppy at times rather than moving with fluidity.Some creatures within the film seemed a little unnecessary to be honest - the bat-like figures that take advantage of a blind man are very purple and look like puppets, not allowing me to take them seriously. What is really unnecessary, however, is the skeleton figures fighting for Jason's enemies at the conclusion of the film. I mean, Jason's enemies already have Jason and his team outnumbered, yet they insist on raising skeletons from the ground to fight with Jason and the Argonauts. They basically included this just because they could.The main thing that bothers me about this film is disregarding the inciting incident entirely; Pelias goes out of his way to attempt to kill Jason at the film's start, who is destined to kill him. Jason then talks about his plan to avenge his father - not knowing he is talking to Pelias, and Pelias advises him to travel to the edge of the Earth to retrieve a tool that will aid him in his quest to kill Pelias. Then this is completely disregarded later, and Jason comes nowhere close to getting his vengeance at the film's conclusion. What was the point of the beginning then? What was the point of the film in general?I enjoyed seeing Harryhausen's effects, but this film seemed like a waste of time since it threw the story it had at the beginning away and never looked back.

Ray Harryhausen was the master of stop-motion special effects. Although he seemed to just get better with time, this is nonetheless one of the best films of the bunch, a thoroughly enjoyable drama with interesting moments of mythical creature action. Bernard Herrmann wrote a brassy score for this film while off duty from Hitchcock. Producer Schneer's and Harryhausen's goal was not a faithful rendition of the Greek myth, but a Hollywood action spectacle, and at that, they succeeded. The story takes many liberties with the original myth, such as the seven-headed hydra Jason fights to get the golden fleece. One liberty it does not take is politically correctness: the Greeks are white, no 'token women' join the Argonauts, and that is just fine.The general story holds true to the myth: Pelias steals the throne of Thessaly and puts all but one contender to death - Jason. To return to his rightful throne, Jason, with aid of the Goddess Hera, obtains the Golden fleece of Colchis, accompanied by the trusty band of Argonauts through many adventures, and marries the pagan sorceress Medea. Many adventures ensue throughout, such as saving Phineas from the harpies, squeezing past the Symplegade rocks (no dove in the film ). Much is also left out, some of which can be seen in the more recent miniseries, and much is added to make for more stop-motion spectacle.The special effects are a bit rickety as all stop-motion animation is, but they often interact very well with the human characters. For example, the skeleton fighting scene has not been topped by any modern efforts, whereas the hydra scene has a lot of sword stabbing at thin air and little engagement. Before faulting the film for that, consider Obi Wan Kenobi fighting droids and drones in Star Wars Episode I: so many years later, so much CGI money, and the interactivity is less than Harryhausen's fighting skeleton's scene. The drones fall and get cut apart without really seeming to put up a fight; and boy, do they miss a lot for machinery that should have millisecond response time."Jason" is not perfect: the acting is often wooden, many fight scenes look very staged, and the story occasionally bogs down. So it stays at the level of a grand Saturday matinée, of which Indiana Jones many years later reflected the best spirit also, with an archaeologist hunting myths, instead of the myths themselves.