Spoiled Beefcake

I figured after watching Hercules In The Center Of The Earth that I would want some more Greek mythology action, so on a whim I picked up a cheap $2.95 copy of the 2000 miniseries Jason and the Argonauts at a thrift store - a title I had never seen before.  Well, I'm glad I only paid 2.95 for it, I couldn't imagine paying full-boat MSRP back in the day, because this thing sucks.

I'm not going to spend much time on this.  First, the good (there is actually some): Frank Langella and Derek Jacobi are decent.  The guy doing Hercules is almost okay.  I like the fact that Atalanta is in it (she is in some versions of the original myth).  I like that a *few* things are closer to the original myths compared to the 1963 Harryhausen movie.  Speaking of which, I like the fact that this version actually has an ending; the '63 version kinda leaves you hanging.

Now to the bad.  The acting, with the previous exceptions, is atrociously awful.  Keep in mind that the '63 version does not have the world's greatest thespianism, but the 2000 miniseries makes that one look like Shakespeare in comparison.  Jason is wimpy.  Medea is just creepy.  Pelias (played by Dennis Hopper) is absolutely execrable.  The minor roles are mediocre at best.  The direction is cheesy.  The music is lazy and just plays the same stupid theme over and over again (definitely nowhere near Bernard Hermann's Jason score). The story itself is drawn-out, and while a few things are true to the myths, other things just seemed to be pulled out of the writers' asses.  The part about Hercules being a servant of Hera is the worst offender - in the original myths, she is his mortal enemy continually plaguing him with woe and misfortune.  Look, I know that some shows or movies take a lot of liberties with the source material, but at least I know that Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Disney's Hercules are total bullshit because they toss almost everything established out from the word go and don't even pretend to be accurate.  They can actually be entertaining as a result.  The problem with Jason 2000 is that it wants to have it both ways and thus can't decide what it wants to be.  You can argue that the '63 classic isn't all that accurate either but a) it's  still more accurate than the '00 version and b) it has a sense of wonder... and the MOST AWESOME SKELETON FIGHT EVER COMMITTED TO CELLULOID.  The bottom line is that this version is not really worth seeing, just see the 1963 classic; it has its flaws but it is miles better.  You know the drill about pictures.