Clash of the Titans is loosely based on the myth of Perseus, one of the earliest Greek demigods and mythological heroes. While a lot of the details from the movie are actually blends of several myths, the core story of Perseus trying to save Andromeda is there. Perseus (Harry Hamlin) and his mother were cast away from their home city when her father found out she bore a child of Zeus (which just doesn't sound like a good idea to me). As punishment, Zeus (Laurence Olivier) has Poseidon (Jack Gwillim) sic the monstrous Kraken on the city and destroy it utterly.
Years later, the goddess Thetis (Maggie Smith), is forced to watch her son, Calibos (Neil McCarthy), turned into a monster by Zeus as punishment for the way he has lived his life. In a fit of spite over her son's fate and the fact that he won't be marrying the lovely Andromeda (Judi Bowker), she not only curses the city to never be at peace, but she sends Perseus on a quest that will pit her son against Zeus'.
Perseus' journey kicks off when he sees Andromeda and immediately falls in love with her. Late at night, he watches as her spirit is stolen away and brought to Calibos' lair where the two meet and do battle. While the demonic half-god survives the encounter, Perseus uses the monster's severed hand as proof of his victory and wins the hand of Andromeda. Too bad for Perseus that Thetis isn't too happy with how things turned out and demands a sacrifice in the form of Andromeda.
While it seems like Perseus' fight with Calibos was his quest, it turns out the real mission is to find a way to kill the Kraken before the sacrificial deadline is up. Perseus then journeys around the ancient Greek world encountering mythological creatures from a two-headed dog named Dioskilos, to giant scorpions, to the snake-headed Medusa herself.
Needless to say, while a classic and full of nostalgia, the film doesn't necessarily upscale too well. The stop-action animation is, of course, brilliant, but what looked good on VHS or maybe DVD, comes through harshly "old school" in high definition. What's worse is when you consider the movie was made in 1981 where other technology was becoming prevalent and could have made the experience more contemporary. That being said, I still enjoyed watching the double-exposure, split-screen less-than-perfect green screen tricks used in Clash of the Titans, it just made the film feel a bit older than it actually is. To top things off, while the film has been digitally remastered, it is obvious that quite a few scenes throughout it were only minimally cleaned up. These scenes are typically ones filled with a lot of sea-spray, heavy fog or up in the clouds of Mount Olympus. Most likely this is because the added effort of despeckling scenes that were supposed to have speckles was too much to handle, but it makes for very noticeable jumps in visual quality.
I was only slightly enthusiastic over the Blu-ray's extra features. While I enjoyed the interview with Ray Harryhausen about the creation of the film, as well as the brief interviews about each of the stop-action characters like Pegasus, Bubo (the mechanical owl) and of course Calibos and Medusa, I knew they were all on the previous DVD release from 2004. What Clash of the Titans' Blu-ray release does add is what Warner Brothers calls a "Blu-ray Book." Basically, instead of a standard case, the movie's box is actually a hard-bound book with the disc at the back. The pages of the book are filled with details about the actors, characters and the film. This aspect is a real draw of film-aficionados or big fans of Harryhausen, but might end up being more of a hassle for everyone else. I will say there is a nice perk in this package in the form of a ticket to the new Clash of the Titans 2010 movie, as well as a sneak peek at the film, but like all similar extras, these will quickly lose their value once the movie is out of theaters.
In the end, Clash of the Titans is a fun experience for those that want to re-watch the classic movie on their new high definition system, but I doubt it will win over any new, younger viewers. Clash of the Titans should be bought for nostalgic reasons only. If you want to see better Harryhausen productions, I would recommend re-watching Jason and the Argonauts or The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
