Second, on remaking an old favorite. I'll tell you why the middle-aged critical Cassandras remember the 1981 version as a movie milestone: because when they first saw it, they were 11. Not that it didn't boast its antique charms, mostly in Harryhausen's nifty-creaky beasties, but these scenes consume perhaps 15 mins. of a two-hr. movie. The rest is a botch, as storytelling or spectacle. First we're up on Olympus in the company of some swank Brit actors — Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera, Maggie Smith as Thetis — whose contempt for the material, and for themselves for taking this rich but demeaning payday, deprives their readings of either the sizzle of high drama or the florid flounce of high camp. Then we're on earth, in Argos, where the half-god Perseus, Zeus' bastard son, is incarnated by Harry Hamlin with a pouty air and the look of a Muscle Beach Andy Samberg. Under director Desmond Davis, the live-action scenes are stately, starchy, suffocating.
Third, Bubo. C'mon, guys, this whistling clockwork owl was one of Harryhausen's lesser concoctions. Offering comic relief to the 1981 film's solemnity, Bubo was a figure of George Lucas-like whimsy: the echo of R2D2, precursor to Jar Jar Binks. At the end, a wandering poet (Burgess Meredith) says that Perseus' achievements might inspire him to write a play, and when Bubo starts clucking he says comfortingly, "Oh, don't worry, I won't leave you out." The new movie's screenwriters, Travis Beacham, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, took that as a cue to usher Bubo into a scene where Perseus (Sam Worthington) is girding for battle. "What is this?" he asks a soldier, who replies, "Leave it." The whole thing takes about 15 secs., which is quite Bubonic enough for my tastes.