Clash Of The Titans

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The trouble with stop-motion animation is, well, it looks like stop-motion animation. "Clash of the Titans," made in 1981, was the last hurrah for the master of stop-motion animation, Ray Harryhausen, and it's a shame he went out on a less-than-perfect note. Not that his creations are anything less than worthy; it's just that his type of animation was already passé by the time "Titans" arrived on the scene, and it wouldn't be long before computer graphics, CGI, would be taking over. Nor are today's computer-generated images perfect, by any means, but they are an improvement over the somewhat herky-jerky movements of the old technique.

Mainly, though, "Clash of the Titans" suffers from a mediocre script, too much wooden dialogue, and too much stiff acting. Oh, well, it's still fun for kids, I'm sure, and for anyone suffering terminal nostalgia.

I can still remember my own excitement seeing a Harryhausen picture for the first time, "It Came From Beneath the Sea" in 1955. A giant octopus was tearing up San Francisco, and because I've always lived in the S.F. Bay Area and was familiar with the City, it was thrilling to watch the monster have his way with familiar landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Ferry Building. The special effects were hardly the most lifelike things in the world, but to a fifth grader they looked entirely genuine. Then came the real Harryhausen treasures-- "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956), "20 Million Miles to Earth" (1957), "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958), "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" (1960), "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), "First Men in the Moon" (1964), "The Valley of Gwangi" (1969), "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1974), and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977), among many others.

Screenwriter Beverly Cross based much of "Clash of the Titans" on Greek mythology, more or less mixing and matching the legends to produce the tale of gods, mortals, and monsters he was looking for. He creates a "Hero's Journey" that would make Joseph Campbell proud, a quest wherein a young protagonist must answer his fate by overcoming a host of obstacles to marry a princess and rule a kingdom.

The monsters are the most interesting characters in the film, outclassing the gods and mortals by a country mile. The gods, you see, are a petty, jealous, squabbling lot, playing with the lives of humans like chess pieces on a game board. The head of the gods is Zeus, of course, and what better actor for the greatest of the gods than one of the greatest of actors, Sir Laurence Olivier. He chews up the scenery, and I wouldn't have it any other way; at least he invests his character with a modicum of life, something most of the other actors seem reticent to do.

Zeus's adversary on Mt. Olympus is Thetis, played by the indomitable Maggie Smith. Seems Thetis is ticked off at Zeus for changing her mortal son into a monster, Calibos (Neil McCarthy), and is getting her revenge by thwarting Zeus's attempts to help his own illegitimate son, Perseus (Harry Hamlin), achieve his destiny and wed the Princess Andromeda (Judi Bowker).

Among the other gods are Claire Bloom as Hera, Zeus's long-suffering wife; Ursula Andress as Aphrodite, naturally, the goddess of love and beauty; and Susan Fleetwood as Athena, goddess of wisdom, fertility, the useful arts, and prudent warfare. Except for Zeus and Thetis, however, the other gods don't have much to say or do but stand around and attempt to look godlike. Probably the most thankless job of all goes to Jack Gwillim as Poseidon, whose only duty is to hold his breath under water.

Down among the mortals, Hamlin tries his best to bring some vitality to a virtually humorless, colorless role, but he never succeeds. The best he can do is look handsome, maintain a heroic posture, and wait for his long-running stint on TV's "L.A. Law" to come along. As his girlfriend, the young Englishwoman, Ms. Bowker, is sweetly attractive but hardly a force in the movie. Burgess Meredith fares better as Ammon, a playwright and poet who befriends Perseus in his quest. He's a little squirrelly and always a touch mischievous, adding a bit of spark to an otherwise listless story. Finally, there's Siân Phillips as Cassiopeia, Andromeda's mother, at first a seeming harpy but later turning out to be a pretty nice old gal.

Still and all, it's the monsters that rule the film. Among the non-Harryhausen creatures are three blind Stygian witches played by Flora Robson, Anna Manahan, and Freda Jackson, who are somewhat amusing, but Harryhausen's constructions are the prime objects of enjoyment. They include a vicious two-headed dog, Dioskilos; a mechanical owl, Bubo; the snake-headed, snake-torsoed ogre, Medusa; the flying horse, Pegasus; several gigantic scorpions; and the sea monster known as the Kraken, actually a legendary Norse critter said to have caused whirlpools off the coast of Norway, but who's counting? "Unleash the Kraken."

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