Clash of the Titans

There is something so OLD fashioned and cheesy about 1981's CLASH OF THE TITANS that its impossible to resist for this huge fan of Greek mythology since grade school.

Ray Harryhausen defines old school, stop motion animation in movies. Compared to today's CGI, its crap. Plain and simple. But there's so much nostalgia seeing this one again, its easy to laugh and just enjoy two hours of fun.

Laurence Olivier is Zeus (of course, who else would he play?) Ursula Andress is Aphrodite and Maggie Smith is Thetis, gathered in Mount Olympus and overseeing the humans on Earth.

We meet Perseus (Harry Hamlin) as he grows into a young warrior and falls in love with Andromeda (Judi Bowker). The tale leaves plenty of room for giant sea monsters ("Release The Kraken!") tidal waves, Pegasus the flying horse and in the film's best sequence, Medusa.

Harryhausen was a legend in movie making, from "The Voyage of Sinbad" to "One Million Years BC", he made monsters and dinosaurs come to life for children of the sixties and seventies.

If I showed my grandson today, he'd probably say 'That's silly" as he's already spoiled by Jurassic World and the realism of digital effects.

This one's just a fun throwback to the very early 80's, a star-studded cast and plenty of family fun, with some surprising nudity thrown in courtesy of English sensibilities around such things.

You can feel the effect of 'Star Wars" in the goofy little mechanical owl the filmmakers feel compelled to wedge into story to ill effect, but the adventures of Perseus keep things moving along.

TITANS is old school fun. The special effects are a laughable liability, but if you can get in the mood and roll with them, this CLASH gets a nostalgic B-.