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UK, USA 1961
Director: Don Chaffey
Cast: Todd Armstrong, Gary Raymond, Nancy Kovack, Laurence Naismith, Niall MacGinnis, Honor Blackman
Rating: G
Language: English
Release Date: 15 August 1963 (UK); 19 June 1963 (USA)
Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
The Movie Review
Medea, the high priestess of Colchis
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JASON
and the
ARGONAUTS |
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Any adventure epic fantasy film fans wouldn't be properly entertained and educated if they hadn't seen this movie, a memorable piece in fantasy genre coming from the early 60s and created by the master of special visual effects, Ray Harryhausen. Directly taken from Greek Mythology (with some changes actually) telling the story of Jason and his quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece at the end of the world, Jason is played by the late actor --with sadly short-career-- Todd Armstrong.
 Jason's wound tended by Medea
It all started when Jason is still an infant and his father's --the King Aristo-- Kingdom of Thessaly is ransacked by the greedy King Pelias. Claimed to be told and blessed by Zeus (Niall MacGinnis), Pelias conquer the whole city with full gusto. Pelias is actually feeling rather down because it is also foretold by a soothsayer that he will be one day overthrown by the only son of King Aristo, Jason. Fearing the premonition, King Pelias (Douglas Wilmer) seeks to kill all the descendants of Aristo: Jason and his two sisters, Philomela and Briseis. However, since the goddess Hera (Honor Blackman) is on Jason's side due to Pelias' action of spilling blood in Hera's temple, Jason manages to escape the slaughter and grown up to be a strong and spirited 20-year old young man.
Ironically, King Pelias life himself is saved by Jason from being drowned in the river and even though Pelias realizes who Jason is, he refrains from killing him directly because of the curse cast upon King Pelias that if he destroys Jason, then he will destroy himself. Jason then seeks to overthrow King Pelias and reclaim his Kingdom of Thessaly by going into a perilous journey to a place where no Greek has set their foot upon, the land of Colchis which houses the Legendary Golden Fleece, an item given by the gods and goddesses to ensure the wealth and prosperity of a nation!
 Jason and the Brave Argonauts
In order to accomplish this seemingly-impossible task, Jason (Todd Armstrong) assembles brave men, strong athletes and renowned heroes of Greek including the famous Heracles/Hercules (Nigel Green) to sail on a ship built by Argos (Laurence Naismith). Hence, the group which Jason commanded is dubbed as Argonauts! However, King Pelias has personally assigns his own son, Acastus (Gary Raymond), to go along as one of the Argonauts to ensure Jason's doom. Will Jason be able to accomplish his task? Will he ever regain his rightful throne and overthrow King Pelias?
 Talos and the Brave but Puny Argonauts
There is no more gigantic mythological creatures' rhubarb in Jason and the Argonauts, and I do honestly think almost everything in Ray Harryhausen's first coloured picture namely The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) is much more shocking and neatly crafted. I don't see anything too grotesque from Talos who dwells in The Isle of Bronze, except for its super duper size (and yes it's actually mesmerizing) and the Harpies of Phrygia are too doll-like, the fight of the 7 Skeletons versus 3 Argonauts is indeed entertaining but not to the level of shocking. Triton with his fish-tail is memorable. But I have to give credits for the creation of the Hydra creature! Awesome, the serpentine multi-headed monster and its tail which shakes like rattle-snake is hard to forget!
 Jason and the ever-cool Hydra
Jason and the Argonauts focuses entirely on Jason's adventure and struggle to claim his rightful throne, though the movie sometimes switches to portray the gods argument among themselves about Jason's determination and his hatred to gods (except for Hera and Hermes). Even though it lacks many things, I still recommend this for any movie buffs who appreciate the portrayal of creatures/monsters without the use of CGI or actors in Monster costumes. The most shocking of all if we are talking about movies in general is the abrupt ending... which answers nothing to the original reason that drives Jason to do the adventure.
* Will Jason be able to accomplish his task? Well... Of course and it's not a spoiler to say that...
* Will he ever regain his righful throne and overthrow King Pelias? Unfortunately no! After more than 90 minutes, the ending does not answer the question. According to IMDb, it's because Ray Harryhausen had planned to do a sequel as closure (probably like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), but sadly has never been realized.
 Ready to slash some skeletons!
I honestly didn't feel the thrill or the total excitement from Jason and the Argonauts. Not because of the acting, but probably due to the lack of any meaningful drama, especially between Jason and Medea (Nancy Kovack) the high priestess of Colchis. The castle siege is a total blah, actually one of the lamest portrayal of war ever. The only time when an actor is fighting an actor is between Jason and Acastus on the ship, but clearly the sword battle is highly staged. Though the cinematography is beautiful but still... Without Ray Harryhausen, the movie will just be that another run-of-the-mill entry in the realm of Sword and Sandal. On the bright side, thanks to him we could see odd-looking creatures like Talos, Blue Harpies, Hydra and the laudable 7 Skeletal Warriors which took Ray Harryhausen 4 months to create a 3-minute scene! Jason and the Argonauts was regarded by Ray himself as his best film. So, fantasy film fans are mandatory to see this anyhow. Hopefully, the planned future movie of Jason titled Jason and the Argonauts: The Kingdom of Hades (2012) would depict Jason's journey home with more adventure and thrill.
> Hydra AKA Lernaean Hydra is indeed a utterly grotesque Monster, enjoy it more in: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and Hydra (2009).
> Harpies are shriekingly frightening for some, Yes... But these harpies will amuse you to the level of fun idiocy ;-): Harpies (2007).
© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Thursday, 27 October 2011 11:01 pm
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