Viewed in
2010
Premise
Ray Harryhausen contributes to a retelling of the story of Perseus.
Liked
Harryhausen's signature stop-motion creatures. Unexpected boobies!
Hated
The mythology-butchering, boring storyline, and the special effects.
Thoughts
Watching this as an adult, this was practically unwatchable.
What I liked best was that it had an old Hollywood feel to it, thanks to the music, sets, dialogue and dialogue delivery style. I think it was a tribute to those films from the 1960's. As expected, Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures were quite excellent, ranging from giant vultures to the slithering Medusa monster.
Except Harryhausen's cool critters, the special effects were laughably outdated. It looked pretty good for a 1960's movie, except Clash of the Titans was made in 1981. I swear I've seen better special effects in earlier Godzilla movies.
As for the story, bleh. I did not like all the rearranging of the myths just to add more monsters. Half the time, I was distracted by thoughts of "That's not how I remember it". Also, the mechanical owl seemed like an R2-D2 ripoff.
The wooden acting did not help the cause either. While it was fun to see a young Maggie Smith (via Harry Potter movies), she lacked much presence for a goddess. Same for the late, great Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus.
Despite the stop-motion monsters and tribute-like feel, I found this movie boring and very outdated.
What was the rating of this movie? There were two boob shots! And this was meant for kids?
What I would change
The misleading title. It sounded cool, but there was no clashing of any titans whatsoever. Perhaps if it was called "The Legend of Perseus", I would have liked it better.
