{"id":13562,"date":"2026-11-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-20T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/?p=13562"},"modified":"2026-11-13T09:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T09:24:16","slug":"an-old-fashioned-adventure-of-mythical-proportions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/an-old-fashioned-adventure-of-mythical-proportions\/","title":{"rendered":"An Old-Fashioned Adventure of Mythical Proportions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>11 Minute, 54 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

MOVIE REVIEW
\nClash of the Titans [Limited Edition]<\/strong>
\n –  <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Genre: <\/strong>Adventure, Fantasy
\nYear Released: <\/strong>1981, 2026 4K
\nRuntime: <\/strong>1h 58m
\nDirector: <\/strong>Desmond Davis
\nWriter: <\/strong>Beverley Cross
\nCast: <\/strong>Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, Ursula Andress, Claire Bloom, Siân Phillips, Neil McCarthy
\nWhere to Watch: <\/strong>available now; order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com<\/a>, www.mvdshop.com<\/a>, or www.amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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RAVING REVIEW: <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>The gods of Olympus have a remarkable talent for making everyone else's lives miserable, and CLASH OF THE TITANS gives them plenty of opportunities to demonstrate it. Desmond Davis's adaptation of Greek mythology treats their arguments and grudges as a perfectly reasonable explanation for why a young man must confront creatures that could kill him in seconds. Perseus may be the designated hero, but the immortals keep interfering with his life as though the mortal world exists entirely for their entertainment. It's an appealingly ridiculous foundation for an adventure, and the movie commits to it without winking at the audience every few minutes to make sure everyone understands the joke.<\/p>\n

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There's a lot more to CLASH OF THE TITANS than its reputation as a showcase for Ray Harryhausen, even if his creations have understandably become the main reason the film remains a familiar title. The screenplay by Beverley Cross takes bits of the Perseus legend, rearranges them into a quest, and uses the gods' competing loyalties to connect the challenges. Harry Hamlin plays Perseus, the son of Zeus, who is drawn to Princess Andromeda (Judi Bowker) and a string of increasingly dangerous tests. The story has the straightforward morality of a traditional adventure tale, but Olympus complicates matters. Human choices have consequences, and divine favoritism can change the rules whenever it pleases.<\/p>\n

Laurence Olivier's Zeus presides over a pantheon populated by an unusually distinguished group of performers. Maggie Smith plays Thetis, whose anger over the treatment of her son Calibos gives the conflict a personal dimension. Claire Bloom appears as Hera, Ursula Andress as Aphrodite, and Jack Gwillim as Poseidon. The casting carries an inherent amusement. These aren't anonymous deities hovering in the background. They're major actors arguing about the fate of humanity while surrounded by the formal trappings of Olympus. Their disagreements give the film an alternative source of action, though the repeated interventions also mean Perseus doesn't always seem to control his own adventure.<\/p>\n

Hamlin approaches Perseus with the sincerity the material calls for. He isn't written as an especially complicated young man, and his journey relies more on courage and determination than on a profound personality change. That simplicity fits the legend's broad outlines, although it also limits how much the human drama can compete with the fantastical dangers. Bowker's Andromeda has a pivotal place in the story, but the romantic relationship is asked to develop under the pressure of destiny and elaborate plot machinery. The film takes the pairing seriously. Its conviction is part of the old-fashioned charm, even when the romance has less room to establish itself than the adventure surrounding it.<\/p>\n

Burgess Meredith brings a different energy as Ammon, the playwright who accompanies and advises Perseus. The character provides a human perspective amid the constant interference from Olympus, and Meredith has the presence that suits a story told as a legend passed down through generations. His role also helps connect the quest's separate challenges. Without a figure like Ammon, the plot's assortment of riddles, gifts, threats, and destinations could feel even more like individual episodes assembled because Greek mythology offered such an irresistible supply of material. His presence doesn't eliminate that episodic quality, but it gives Perseus someone besides the gods to engage with as the stakes rise.<\/p>\n

The film is particularly revealing when considered alongside the fantasy landscape of its era. STAR WARS had changed expectations for large-scale cinematic adventure, and CLASH OF THE TITANS arrived with a style that owed far more to an earlier tradition of mythological filmmaking. Its dramatic dialogue can sound ceremonious, its storytelling is earnest, and its creatures belong to the handcrafted world Harryhausen had spent decades developing. Those qualities can make the production seem older than its release year. They also distinguish it from productions that pursue speed or nonstop action. The movie asks audiences to accept a classical adventure on its own terms, a choice that brings genuine individuality alongside limitations in momentum and characterization.<\/p>\n

Harryhausen's contribution makes that individuality impossible to mistake. His stop-motion creatures move with a physical irregularity that immediately identifies them as carefully constructed objects animated frame by frame. Calling those movements dated misses much of what makes the technique worth preserving. These figures have shapes and proportions chosen by an artist, with performances created through countless small adjustments. A modern digital creature may blend more seamlessly into live action, but seamlessness isn't the only measure of expressive design. Harryhausen's work invites attention to each monster's character, including the details that make it threatening, peculiar, or strangely sympathetic. It's a very different relationship between viewer and effect than pure photographic imitation.<\/p>\n

The mechanical owl Bubo is one of the film's more curious inventions. An explicitly artificial companion in an ancient mythological setting could have been an awkward addition, especially given how quickly any friendly mechanical sidekick invites comparisons with STAR WARS. Bubo serves a recognizable purpose in a story otherwise populated by dangerous creatures and self-interested immortals. The owl introduces a more playful kind of fantasy. A small figure whose behavior contrasts with the huge monsters that dominate the adventure's major confrontations. Whether the character belongs in a Greek legend is probably less interesting than the fact that this particular film has room for such a peculiar little creation.<\/p>\n

The darker creatures make a different impression. Calibos, associated with Thetis's grievance, gives the mythology an example of divine punishment that affects an individual rather than an entire city or kingdom. Pegasus introduces the thrill of a creature associated with freedom and flight. Medusa brings a different kind of danger, defined by the impossibility of looking directly at an enemy. Even without giving away the methods Perseus uses to survive these encounters, the variety demonstrates why Harryhausen's visual imagination was so well matched to myth. Each challenge calls for something visually distinct, and the adventure has a natural excuse to keep inventing threats beyond the reach of ordinary human opponents.<\/p>\n

Medusa deserves particular attention because the figure embodies a wonderfully economical horror concept. A glance can mean death, which changes the basic relationship between a hero and the danger he's facing. The character's design combines a recognizably human form with details that place her outside any ordinary understanding of a living creature. It's the sort of monster that doesn't require pages of explanation to establish its threat. The mythology supplies the fear, and Harryhausen gives that fear a memorable physical form. CLASH OF THE TITANS may be presented as a family-oriented fantasy adventure. Its best-known creatures show how naturally that genre can brush against horror without turning into an entirely different movie.<\/p>\n

Not every component of the film has the same lasting appeal. The story's reliance on tasks and divine solutions can make dramatic progress feel less like the result of Perseus's decisions and more like a series of instructions he has to follow. Several of the characters exist primarily to send him onward, interfere with him, or explain the next obstacle. The film's reverence for the myth also creates a certain emotional distance. For all the trouble caused by personal jealousy, romantic devotion, and parental favoritism, its relationships tend to be expressed in grand declarations. Those are limitations of the writing as presented, not reasons to dismiss the storytelling form it has chosen.<\/p>\n

The presentation also benefits from recognizing that this is Desmond Davis's film, rather than assigning the whole production to its most famous effects artist. Ted Moore's cinematography, Laurence Rosenthal's orchestral score, the locations, the sets, and the cast all help establish a world where the supernatural can intrude on daily existence. Harryhausen's creatures don't function in isolation. They need environments and human performers that make their appearance part of a recognizable adventure. Rosenthal's music, in particular, belongs to the tradition of large-scale fantasy scoring that takes gods and prophecies at face value. The film isn't embarrassed by its ambitions, and that confidence matters when the material includes talking immortals and a clockwork owl.<\/p>\n

Arrow Video's limited edition provides another reason to revisit the production as a piece of film history. The release centers on a new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative, presented in UHD with Dolby Vision and HDR10 compatibility. It includes the restored original lossless stereo track and a newly prepared Dolby Atmos option. These are meaningful choices for a movie whose identity is closely linked to elaborate creature animation and a substantial orchestral score. Preserving the original audio alongside a contemporary alternative gives collectors options without making one presentation the only way to experience the film. Arrow's edition recognizes that its audience may include both longtime admirers and viewers discovering Harryhausen's work.<\/p>\n

The supplements put welcome emphasis on the people responsible for that work. Two archival BFI audio interviews preserve Harryhausen's voice, one from a discussion after a 1981 screening and another featuring his longtime producing partner Charles H. Schneer. The second disc includes COURAGE & IMAGINATION, RAY HARRYHAUSEN'S MYTHIC ADVENTURE, a feature-length documentary by David Cairns and Fiona Watson, with contributors including Joe Dante, John Landis, Randall William Cook, and Vanessa Harryhausen. Archival featurettes devoted to individual creatures offer a useful companion to the movie's most recognizable visual achievements. The inclusion of trailers and galleries rounds out a package clearly aimed at people interested in the production, not simply owning the feature at a higher resolution.<\/p>\n

The physical extras reflect that same archival approach. Richey Beckett's commissioned artwork appears alongside the original art on a reversible sleeve and double-sided poster. A collectors' booklet includes new essays by Charlie Brigden, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, David Moses, Martyn Pedler, and Icy Sedgwick, together with archival material. The value of those additions isn't measured by how many objects fit inside the case. They give the release room to discuss the film from perspectives beyond nostalgia, including its place in fantasy cinema and the technical methods that defined Harryhausen's career. For a final feature film by such an influential artist, that historical context feels especially appropriate.<\/p>\n

CLASH OF THE TITANS was Harryhausen's last feature as a producer and special-effects creator, and that fact lends the film a significance beyond the adventures of Perseus. It isn't an unqualified triumph of storytelling, nor does every element of its grand mythological pageant have the same vitality. Its plot can be cumbersome, and the people are occasionally less intriguing than the creatures they encounter. Yet the production preserves a kind of fantasy filmmaking in which an impossible monster could begin as something made by hand and become a personality on screen. The gods get to decide the mortals' fates, but Harryhausen's monsters are the ones that earned their place in movie history.<\/p>\n

Bonus Materials:
\n2 DISC 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS<\/strong>
\nBrand new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative by Arrow Films
\nReversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Richey Beckett
\nDouble-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Richey Beckett
\nCollectors’ perfect-bound booklet containing new writing by critics Charlie Brigden, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, David Moses, Martyn Pedler and Icy Sedgwick plus select archival material<\/p>\n

DISC 1 – FEATURE & EXTRAS (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)<\/strong>
\n4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
\nRestored original lossless stereo and new Dolby Atmos audio options
\nOptional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
\nRay Harryhausen at the BFI, an archival audio interview conducted after a screening of Clash of the Titans in 1981
\nRay Harryhausen & Charles Schneer at the BFI, an archival audio interview with Harryhausen and his long-time producer Charles Schneer<\/p>\n

DISC 2 – EXTRAS (BLU-RAY)<\/strong>
\nCourage & Imagination: Ray Harryhausen’s Mythic Adventure, a brand new feature-length documentary by David Cairns and Fiona Watson celebrating Clash of the Titans and the work of Ray Harryhausen, with contributions from Joe Dante, John Landis, Randall Wil
\nA Conversation with Ray Harryhausen, an archival featurette in which Harryhausen discusses the film
\nMyths and Monsters, a series of archival featurettes in which Harryhausen discusses the main creatures of Clash of the Titans: Calibos, Pegasus, Bubo, the Scorpions, Medusa, the Kraken and Dioskilos
\nTheatrical trailers
\nImage galleries<\/p>\n

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[photo courtesy of ARROW VIDEO, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]<\/em><\/p>\n

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MOVIE REVIEW Clash of the Titans [Limited Edition]  –      Genre: Adventure, Fantasy Year Released: 1981, 2026 4K Runtime: 1h 58m Director: Desmond Davis Writer: Beverley Cross Cast: Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, Ursula Andress, Claire Bloom, Siân Phillips, Neil McCarthy Where to Watch: available now; order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/img\/0368\/0368063.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t