Ryan Denziloe Simply put the film is not very good in most of its important aspects.I see a lot of glib remarks about how modern audiences would dislike it because of its dated special effects. Not so. Its shortcomings have nothing to do with the special effects; its shortcomings are in all of the other elements that a viewer rightly expects from a good film.The screenplay is, on the whole, poor. The source material is, of course, legendary, and there is some pleasure in seeing that translated to the screen. But deviations are plenty, and are universally misguided. In fact, rather bizarrely, the film does not attempt to deliver any kind of overall narrative. Major plot points are set up in the first act and then never returned to. Regarding the finer details, the dialogue is simplistic, with characters that are crudely drawn, and often outright boneheaded.This is not helped by the acting. The leads are boring. A couple of the secondary characters are engaging, but have little screen time.The action sequences which the film strings together are mostly bad and poorly choreographed. They are strangely dragged out and have no momentum. For example, one major set piece consists of the heroes, the Argonauts, aboard their boat, the Argo, rushing through a pair of perilous cliffs, the "clashing rocks". Except they don't actually rush. The boat just sort of sits there. We never really see the thing go forward. What should have easily translated into an exciting scene instead becomes boring and frustrating. The one action sequence I did enjoy was the battle with the looming iron giant Talos, perhaps because slowness here worked to his advantage and bestowed him with a threatening menace.Music is a mixed bag. The title theme is grand and quite memorable. But the other incidental pieces are sometimes rather bad and distracting.Finally onto the visuals. First off, the live action elements are pretty pedestrian, as is the camera-work. But the main point of interest are Ray Harryhausen's stop motion special effects. On the whole, personally, I was not a huge fan. I thought from an artistic perspective the designs left quite a bit to be desired. As to the animation, having stop motion interact with live action is probably a lot harder than it looks, so credit where it is due for these sequences looking at least slightly believable, especially the complex skeleton sword fight. Generally though it mostly looks rather clunky — again, with exception given to the iron giant. I think it's fair to judge by the standards to which I hold other works of animation, and by those standards it falls well short of masterpiece.All in all, the film is just not a very good one, mostly let down by its poor screenplay and acting, and lacklustre action. The special effects are only of note for stop motion aficionados, and do not redeem it for a general audience.

danielaustin-735-484497 This was one of my favourite films growing up in the 80s. Although it was made in the 60s I still liked the fantasy adventure style movies. I was lucky enough to grow up with Star Wars, Indiana Jones, back to the future and the likes but this is truly a classic. The story is one that we all know but it's the acting, pacing, music and special effects that's really sets it apart. It rumbles along at a nice pace with a solid storyline and regular moments or action. I would of liked to see more of Hercules and a stronger ending but what an achievement this film is. Simply a great watch even now. Hopefully it will be on again this Christmas.

Fella_shibby I saw this on a VHS with my dad when i was only 7 years old. I got terrified seeing the giant Talos. The incredible images stayed with me for years until I saw the movie again when I was 13. This movie is my childhood fav. Saw many times after that. Bought a VHS in the 80s. Bought a vcd in very late 90s. Saw this few years back with my kids. A very nostalgic n one of the finest 60s monster/adventure/horror film fr me. It is a fun, quickly paced adventure movie. The movie has a towering bronze giant named Talos. Winged Harpies, who torment a blind ol man. A seven headed hydra, who gaurds the fleece. N the best for the last- armed skeleton warriors. The main attraction of the film is the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen (The 7th voyage of sindbad, One Million Years BC, The Valley of Gwangi, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and Clash of the Titans).Special thanx to the producer Charles H. Schneer who was famous for his collaborations with Ray Harryhausen. Together, they created some of the best-loved fantasy and science fiction films to grace the silver screen. It is one of the best of the sword-and-sandal epics. The scene where the giant appears from around the cliff was awesome. There is also some decent score by Bernard Hermann. (The man behind the woodwinds of Citizen Kane, the shrieking violins of Psycho, and the saxophone of Taxi Driver). Only one bad thing about this film, the abrupt ending of the movie. Its directed by Don Chaffey (One million years bc).

Rob Starzec I want to start by saying that Ray Harryhausen's effects in this film are quite brilliant even though I would say they are more an excess than a spectacle. What breaks the illusion of this being a film is the idea that his miniatures that were animated by stop- motion seemed choppy at times rather than moving with fluidity.Some creatures within the film seemed a little unnecessary to be honest - the bat-like figures that take advantage of a blind man are very purple and look like puppets, not allowing me to take them seriously. What is really unnecessary, however, is the skeleton figures fighting for Jason's enemies at the conclusion of the film. I mean, Jason's enemies already have Jason and his team outnumbered, yet they insist on raising skeletons from the ground to fight with Jason and the Argonauts. They basically included this just because they could.The main thing that bothers me about this film is disregarding the inciting incident entirely; Pelias goes out of his way to attempt to kill Jason at the film's start, who is destined to kill him. Jason then talks about his plan to avenge his father - not knowing he is talking to Pelias, and Pelias advises him to travel to the edge of the Earth to retrieve a tool that will aid him in his quest to kill Pelias. Then this is completely disregarded later, and Jason comes nowhere close to getting his vengeance at the film's conclusion. What was the point of the beginning then? What was the point of the film in general?I enjoyed seeing Harryhausen's effects, but this film seemed like a waste of time since it threw the story it had at the beginning away and never looked back.