Review of Clash of the Titans (1981) by Martin T — 01 Apr 2010

Oh dear. Time has not been kind to Clash of the Titans. Once a childhood favorite, now something of an embarassment. The special effects are pretty bad. Not just outdated, but poor even for 1981. Right off the bat, with that awful bird sketchily superimposed over the landscape during the opening credits, and that's only the beginning.

There's also shockingly little effort to match the live action shots with the effects shots... the taming of Pegasus scene, for example. When your movie relies this heavily on special effects, they need to stand the test of time.

Some of them are really quite laughable. You know what's not laughable? Bubo, the comic relief mechanical owl. What an appropriate name, since he is like a festering plague sore on the movie. Still, it is a pretty decent adventure tale and not ALL the effects are bad.

I do love how in Greek mythology the gods are all petty douchebags who constantly fuck with people (in more ways than one). And how they seem to make up the rules as they go along... Thetis places Perseus in Joppa, so how does Zeus respond? He gives him some helpful toys, when presumably he could simply put him back where he came from.

But then we wouldn't have a movie, would we? So there is some fun stuff (including Judi Bowker's cute little tushie), but for the most part, the nostalgia has worn off.