When it comes to special effects, Harry is King of the Gods

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Peter Jackson's sumptuous adaptations of the magical worlds of JRR Tolkien proved what could be achieved when a great script was combined with fine acting, epic battle sequences and, perhaps most importantly, well-chosen moments of special and visual effects wizardry.

Clash of the Titans, released today, attempts to follow in the wake of The Lord of the Rings by venturing into the myth and majesty of the ancient Greeks' penchant for larger-than-life storytelling in which the various adventures are littered with any number of astounding creatures.

For Tolkien's Balrog there is the Kraken. For the Witch King there is the Medusa. For the Nazgl there is Charon. It should lend itself so perfectly to a 21st century rendering using computer-generated imagery as the ultimate filmmaker's tool.

So why are so many critics howling their outrage at Louis Leterrier's update of the beloved 1981 all-star classic?

Here's a theory. The original boasted painstaking model work by pioneering stop-motion maestro Ray Harryhausen, the man behind the magic of Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad movies. Harryhausen, who turns 90 in June, spent three months creating the timeless skeleton sword fight in Argonauts; on screen it lasts a few frantic minutes.

This, then, is what is missing from the new, blockbuster version of Clash of the Titans. It takes patience, precision and something akin to genius to bring plausible life to this menagerie of monsters; somehow, tapping keys on a computer to create a 3D world just doesn't present the same challenges.

Harryhausen created his worlds of wonder and fantasy by slow manipulation of real figures. Looking back one can see the joins between stop-motion and flesh-and-blood. Nevertheless, Jason's search for the Golden Fleece is immensely heightened by Harryhausen's behind-the-scenes dexterity. Ditto the journey of Perseus in the '80s version of Clash of the Titans.

Throw in a 24-carat cast that included Maggie Smith, Claire Bloom, Burgess Meredith, Sian Phillips and Laurence Olivier as Zeus and Leterrier's version (the largely underwhelming cast is headed by a po-faced Liam Neeson as the King of the Gods) suddenly pales in comparison.

Thirty years on from Harryhausen's film, audiences expect more. Maybe stop-motion is pass and practitioners like Ray Harryhausen belong to the films of the past.

But I venture that when the newly "re-imagined" (read "ham-fisted") version of Clash of the Titans joins a plethora of other OTT would-be box office smashes in the DVD bargain bucket in our local Tesco's, fans of phantasmagorical cinema will still be buying the original and the earlier films that preceded it.

Cinema should be about magic, not technology. Avatar proved that. And the world of movies can still learn a lot from the modest nonagenarian who was inspired to create illusion by watching King Kong as a wide-eyed 13-year-old in 1933.

Forget Zeus. Ray Harryhausen is truly the King of the Gods. And long may he reign.