Review of Jason and the Argonauts (1963) by Aaron N — 06 Dec 2009

Zeus: The gods are best served by those who need their help the least.

A fun film about the legendary Greek hero Jason and his quest to find the Golden Fleece. The film is quickly paced, has a fun sense of seriousness to itself, and features some very good stop-motion animation by early special effects master Ray Harryhausen.

The film stars Todd Armstrong as Jason, who returns to his Kingdom of Thessaly to claim his throne. But it's not that easy for this. In order to gain the throne, he must find the magical Golden Fleece, which has amazing healing powers. Jason selects a crew, which included Polydeuces, Pelias, Argos, and Hercules. Jason also gains the help of the Queen of the Gods, Hera, played by Pussy Galore herself, Honor Blackman. Jason and his crew must now reach the fleece, while dealing with surviving of a 100 foot bronze giant, a huge venomous creature with head full of seven snakes, and a terrifying army of skeletons.

This is just a fun movie to watch and not necessarily in a cheesy way. Sure there are moments of that scattered throughout, but the adventure nature of this film works well to keep it on a to the point flow. The heavy theatrical acting is met with fun action scenes involving quality work with stop-motion effects. Certainly helping this further is the score provided by Bernard Hermann.

If there is any problem that I had with the film, its that there's no second half or follow up film. The film concludes with Jason retrieving the fleece, but anyone familiar with the exploits of Jason knows about the adventures he has on his way back to Thessaly, let alone what comes of he and his wife Madea.

These are minor quibbles however, as the film is just meant to be some solid adventure fun, with a little Greek myth background to provide for the landscape and characters.

Jason: Now the voyage is over, I don't want any trouble to begin.

Polydeuces: There won't be any trouble, Jason. Just tell us where the city is and when we attack.

Jason: We don't attack.

Polydeuces: But that's foolish, you have the finest fighting men in the world.

Jason: 40 fighting men against a nation?

Phalerus: Better forty than one Jason.

Jason: We're not *pirates*, Phalerus.