Clash of the Titans (1981)

VERDICT:
5/10 Claymation Sensations

An interesting contribution to an…interesting decade.

Clash of the Titans is the story of Perseus and his quest to prove himself worthy as the son of Zeus by solving really hard riddles, marrying the ultimate Greek babe, generally whupping ass and trying to figure out how take down a freakin’ kraken before it tears the roof down on this sucker, thus making him look like a foolish mortal.

Oh yes, it is epic. And, oh yes, it is just as hilarious as that poster makes it look. Might as well have an Atari logo on it.

Back when I was a kid, I thought this movie was pretty freakin’ cool. I think a lot of people felt that way and it’s understandable why. Honestly, what more could you want from a movie than swashbuckling, robot owls and giant scorpions when you’re ten-years-old? As someone who grew up on Ninja Turtles and He-Man, this really was quite the discovery.

So thirteen years go by, a remake comes out, I happen to have a movie blog, so I revisit this gem of my rose-colored youth to see if the magic is still there. And while in certain ways there’s definitely still a draw, it’s still pretty hard hard not to laugh at how seriously this movie takes itself. It’s actually pretty hard not to laugh at almost everything about this movie.

Believe it or not, kiddies, there was once a time where MacBooks didn’t exist, where the height of 3-D technology peaked with a crappy Jaws sequel and where special effects were made with Play-Doh. Clash of the Titans is a time capsule back to that period in movie history where you could mold together a crappy model of Godzilla’s second cousin, call it a kraken and the masses would cower at the mighty beast before them. It was a glorious time, dear children, but unfortunately, that time has come and gone.

It’s hard to really know what to make of this movie by today’s standards. I’m curious to see what people thought of this movie when it first came out because even though you can watch this with a grain of salt and write it off as being “cool” by 1981’s standards (standards weren’t very high back then to begin with), when you consider that Star Wars came out four years prior and more or less set the bar for special effects what with all that lightsaber jibba-jabba, I gotta wonder.

So if any of you out there actually saw this thing when it wasn’t a TV special, I’d love to know the general consensus.

But aside from the “special effects”, the rest of it really isn’t all that great either. It’s painfully slow, it takes forever to get around to any real action, there’s not much of a plot and the acting doesn’t do much to legitimize the final product. Although the scene with Medusa is pretty entertaining, Harry Hamlin ain’t half bad as Perseus (gotta love that hair) and it’s fun to see Burgess Meredith (Mick from Rocky) and Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall) doing their thing back in the day.

Clash of the Titans is one of those movies that’s just so damn dated thirty years down the road that I almost feel weird giving it a score. It’s not a very good movie and even though I could probably crap all over it a lot more than I already have, it’s got a good deal of nostalgia points going for it and nostalgia goes a long way.

Too bad the remake is supposed to suck. How the hell does that happen?