Search

Search only in certain items:

40x40

Awix (3310 KP) rated Jason and the Argonauts (1963) in Movies

Oct 5, 2019 (Updated Oct 5, 2019)  
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
1963 | Fantasy
Corny but much-loved mythological fantasy film. Jason and his men go in search of a magic sheepskin, occasionally with the aid of the gods but without the assistance of modern special effects. A strong, mostly British cast do the usual sterling work while imported stars Todd Armstrong and Nancy Kovack stand around being obviously dubbed.

The script is, to be honest, all over the place: it's episodic, the writers seem to have been making it up as they went (the most memorable character wanders out of the movie half way through), and Jason doesn't actually complete the mission he sets himself at the start (maybe they were hoping for a sequel). However, for a bad movie this has some of the most wonderful special effects ever put on celluloid, namely Ray Harryhausen's brilliant hand-crafted animation. Any amount of stodgy non-acting and dubious costume design would be a small price to pay for sequences like the ones with the bronze titan Talos, the Hydra, or the mob of skeletons at the end (the skeleton battle is such a breathtaking achievement it should really be playing on loop in art galleries around the world). They don't make them like this any more. Even the bad bits are kind of bad in a good way.
  
40x40

Andy K (10823 KP) Oct 5, 2019

I need to watch this again!

    Kayak Session Magazine

    Kayak Session Magazine

    Sports and Magazines & Newspapers

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    The International Whitewater Magazine. The biggest whitewater kayaking magazine in the world. If a...

Pacific Vortex! (Dirk Pitt #1)
Pacific Vortex! (Dirk Pitt #1)
Clive Cussler | 1983 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Ships have been vanishing off of Hawaii for a while, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the 'Pacific Vortex'. But when a nuclear submarine falls victim things become more serious. Marine engineer Dirk Pitt gets involved in the search and finds that the disappearances are not coincidental.

Although released later in the series, Pacific Vortex! is very much a prequel to the main Dirk Pitt series and was the first of the Pitt novels Cussler wrote. As such it is a little different to the rest. Pitt comes across as more of a generic action hero type. The plot is far more straightforward with very little in the way of twists and suprise reveals that became the hallmark of the best of Cussler's novels. The standard hero trope is also enforced by the love interest and the megalomaniac villain in his lair.

However this is still a good read, with good ideas and it's interesting to see some of the building blocks that made up the Pitt franchise, particularly those that surfaced here but were then discarded for the later works. As a story it's not bad with enough going on the engage the reader's interest and obviously it lays the seeds of the later appearance of his children.

Not an essential read by any means, but one that will entertain