The 1981 version of “Clash of the Titans” is not a bad movie but it isn’t very impressive even when you put things into perspective. The film lacks essential qualities that it needed to succeed.

The film follows the adventures of Perseus (Harry Hamlin), the son of Zeus (Laurence Olivier “Sleuth”, “Rebecca”). He is about to be married to Princess Andromeda (Judi Bowker) when Thetis (Maggie Smith “Death On The Nile”) claims she has been insulted and then Andromeda must be a sacrifice to the Kraken or also the whole city will be destroyed. Perseus must find a way to kill the Kraken but it involves getting the head of Medusa.

The acting in the film is laughably horrible. Perseus is one of the blandest heroes I’ve ever seen. Burgess Meredith (“Rocky”, “Batman: The Movie”) is sadly not very good in this film. Laurence Olivier is great as Zeus, although he has little screen time. Princess Andromeda is nothing more than your average damsel in distress. Maggie Smith is average at best, which is a shame as she can be a good actress. All-round I was not impressed with the acting in this film, which is a real shame as there are some good people in it.

Near the beginning of the movie we see the Kraken destroy a city in a few minutes. Near the end he is about to eat a sacrifice but seems to take forever, this is another stupid addition to this film. The special effects although are nice. Ray Harryhausen had made movies long before this and I must say it is little if any improvement over his earlier work. This was made in the 80s yet the skeleton fight in “Jason and the Argonauts” was made in the 60s and there is little difference. Even the first “Star Wars”, which only had a budget of $8,000,000, came out several years before this and looks better. The acting is bad, the action is silly and the special effects aren’t too great.