Giant iron men, sea monsters with heads of men but tails of fish, harpies attacking blind men, hydras whose teeth turn into fighting skeletons and all sorts of other dangers turn what was commonly referred to as the matinée into a fantasy masterpiece which is considered Ray Harryhausen's triumph by many.Todd Armstrong is Jason, a Greek prince who can only reclaim his throne by locating the golden fleece. Of course, there are mortals who don't want him to succeed and it appears that chief God Zeus doesn't want him to succeed either. The only one who seems to be on his side is the head Goddess Hera, Zeus's wife, and here, she is presented as sympathetic unlike other portrayals.This is the epitome of the fast moving special effects spectacular that was perfected by the talents of Lucas and Spielberg. Stop motion special effects dominate here and are more charming and less headache inducing than today's computer generated effects. Every mythological creature who appears offer both thrills and frights, although students of Greek mythology will nit- pick unnecessarily. I day get off your high Pegasus and enjoy it for the ingenuity that went behind it.

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.

Excellent fantasy adventure classic based off of the Greek myth about a hero named Jason leading a group of adventurers on a quest for the legendary Golden Fleece. A much-beloved movie that is still, to this day, the best film version of the Golden Fleece story. The cast is good, although Todd Armstrong and Nancy Kovack were dubbed for some reason. Kovack is gorgeous, by the way. It's hard to take your eyes off of her when she's on screen. The rest of the cast is full of reliable British actors like Niall MacGinnis, Laurence Naismith, Nigel Green, and Gary Raymond. Lovely Honor Blackman plays Hera. One has to wonder if Nigel Green was really the most fit actor they could get to play Hercules. He doesn't look the part but he certainly plays it with gusto. Bernard Herrmann's score is wonderful. The real star of the movie is Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion special effects. Harryhausen regarded this as his best film and it's easy to see why. The living statue of Talos, the Harpies, the Hydra, and the skeleton warriors are all Harryhausen classics. Possibly my favorite scene in the movie wasn't a stop-motion piece, though. It was when Poseidon pops out of the sea like a boss to help Jason. There's something so corny and yet cool about it. This is a great film that's lots of fun for young and old alike.

Ray Harryhausen was the master of stop-motion special effects. Although he seemed to just get better with time, this is nonetheless one of the best films of the bunch, a thoroughly enjoyable drama with interesting moments of mythical creature action. Bernard Herrmann wrote a brassy score for this film while off duty from Hitchcock. Producer Schneer's and Harryhausen's goal was not a faithful rendition of the Greek myth, but a Hollywood action spectacle, and at that, they succeeded. The story takes many liberties with the original myth, such as the seven-headed hydra Jason fights to get the golden fleece. One liberty it does not take is politically correctness: the Greeks are white, no 'token women' join the Argonauts, and that is just fine.The general story holds true to the myth: Pelias steals the throne of Thessaly and puts all but one contender to death - Jason. To return to his rightful throne, Jason, with aid of the Goddess Hera, obtains the Golden fleece of Colchis, accompanied by the trusty band of Argonauts through many adventures, and marries the pagan sorceress Medea. Many adventures ensue throughout, such as saving Phineas from the harpies, squeezing past the Symplegade rocks (no dove in the film ). Much is also left out, some of which can be seen in the more recent miniseries, and much is added to make for more stop-motion spectacle.The special effects are a bit rickety as all stop-motion animation is, but they often interact very well with the human characters. For example, the skeleton fighting scene has not been topped by any modern efforts, whereas the hydra scene has a lot of sword stabbing at thin air and little engagement. Before faulting the film for that, consider Obi Wan Kenobi fighting droids and drones in Star Wars Episode I: so many years later, so much CGI money, and the interactivity is less than Harryhausen's fighting skeleton's scene. The drones fall and get cut apart without really seeming to put up a fight; and boy, do they miss a lot for machinery that should have millisecond response time."Jason" is not perfect: the acting is often wooden, many fight scenes look very staged, and the story occasionally bogs down. So it stays at the level of a grand Saturday matinée, of which Indiana Jones many years later reflected the best spirit also, with an archaeologist hunting myths, instead of the myths themselves.