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Watch it at the right age, and it's as entrancing as The Thief of Bagdad. (It's not until years later that one notices the Babylonian statue in the middle of a Greek plaza, or the leviathan flattening Mediterranean cities when it should be swallowing Viking ships somewhere in Norway.) Mount Olympus is a health spa for toga-wrapped thespians, Zeus (Laurence Olivier) is a fate-manipulating horndog who beams with pride at Perseus (Harry Hamlin) while vengefully deforming Calibos (Neil McCarthy). Both mortals vie for Andromeda (Judi Bowker), who has the sphinx's burden of repeating the fiend's riddles to unfortunate suitors. The juvenile couple's premature happy ending is interrupted by Thetis (Maggie Smith), who demands a vestal sacrifice for Poseidon's pumped-up pet salamander, the Kraken. Only a gorgon's stare can vanquish it, say the Stygian witches, so off goes the hero on a journey of winged horses, two-headed watchdogs, Grim Reaperish gondoliers, and comic-relief metallic owls. "I was partial to tragedy in my youth," mutters the aged playwright (Burgess Meredith), possibly trying to figure out the film's tone. Ray Harryhausen's swan song, a mythological mishmash to showcase one of his grandest creations: The Medusa, a slithering Hellenic Wicked Witch whose toxic blood gives birth to giant scorpions. (Her decapitation is out of Caravaggio, the camera lingers on her expiring figure for one last rattle.) When the creatures take over the screen, Desmond Davis' semi-sequel to Jason and the Argonauts becomes a noble tribute to the stop-motion artisans who could play God with dolls and maquettes, and a touching eulogy to handmade illusionism in a decade of increasingly synthetic effects. With Claire Bloom, Ursula Andress, Siân Phillips, Flora Robson, Jack Gwillim, Susan Fleetwood, and Tim Pigott-Smith.
--- Fernando F. Croce |