Korsgaard's Commentary
Korsgaard's Commentary - From pop culture to popular opinion, and my life to the world at large
In the collective pantheon of Gods and heroes, and the legends that surround them, few are as ubiquitous as the tale of the Greek demigod Hercules. Though varying in details, most versions of the legend are similar enough that I don’t need to explain it, only that tales of Hercules’ godlike strength and grand adventures have made him Greco-Roman pantheon’s most famous son, and excluding rare exceptions like King Arthur, Beowulf or Sun Wukong, perhaps human cultures’ most iconic hero.
So given that, it’s somewhat curious that there is a definitive lack of film adaptations of Hercules’ legends, certainly a lack of any good ones. There’s been no shortage of bad ones mind you, including a score of lousy Italian films best known for their MST3K riffings, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s often forgotten first film role, and even an animated Disney movie best remembered for its gospel music, James Woods and marking the end of the Disney Renaissance. Even today, in the age of cheap CGI and scores of film adaptations based on superheroes filling theaters, Hercules can’t catch a break, with the most recent attempt, The Legend of Hercules , staring Twilight-alumni Kellan Lutz, was torn apart by critics and sank at the box office without a trace. When the best Hercules movie yet made is likely the one starring the Three Stooges, that says a lot.
So can the movie live up to the legend, or is watching it one of the Twelve Labors in and of itself? Join me as I find out my dear readers, as I review Hercules.
Famous throughout Greece as the son of Zeus and a warrior whose achievements are beyond number, and just as infamous throughout the same lands for his alleged murder of his wife and children, Hercules wanders through Macedonia as the leader of a small, loyal band of mercenaries, a few jobs away from putting his warrior ways behind him. That is, until an offer from the King of Thrace, to train an Army against a fearsome horde of monsters seeking to destroy this kingdom, gets Hercules and his band of rogues involved in matters that aren’t what they appear to be, and that to make it through to the end, Hercules may have to become just what so many believe him to be: a hero.
You remember all of those awesome scenes in the trailers showing Dwane Johnson fighting the Hydra, slaying the Nemean Lion, or capturing the Erymanthian Boar? If you came to see these adventures in full, you’re going to be very disappointed, as not only do the trailers showcase all you get to see of them, but they’re all condensed in the first five minutes of the movie into what is revealed to be a story told by Hercules’ nephew Iolaus. All we get to see of the mythology, monsters and superhuman feats of the Hercules legend we see in the movie is condensed into a montage, with the rest of the movie focused on deconstructing it, telling the tale of a Hercules that’s all man, which while having its moments, introduces far more problems.
Don’t mistake my comments as just snobbery that it essentially tosses the Hercules myth under the bus either – a deconstruction or more realistic take ala Brothers Grimm or Troy could have worked if executed in the right hands, or done the right way. The problem with Hercules is that it’s not in the hands of Terry Gilliam or Wolfgang Petersen, it’s in the hands of Brett Ratner, and unfortunately, the legend has been swapped out with a collection of clichés that, if not picked out of a hat, were certainly cobbled together from their collective TVtropes pages. Even that might have worked, if the movie itself could make up its mind whether it wants to poke fun at these clichés or play them straight, resulting in a movie that only escapes being called paint by numbers only because it couldn’t agree on the color scheme.
Still, I have to commend the cast for doing their best with the watered down material handed to them, especially Dwane Johnson as Hercules, who does his best to carry the film through charisma and chutzpah alone. The rest of the cast is something of a mixed bag, little suprise, given the mixed quality of the lot. Ian McShane as a fatalistic soothsayer is a hoot, and Rufus Sewell, best known for playing the villain in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter , steals any scene he’s in thanks to getting the choicest bits of snark that the script had to offer. Others however, are barely there at all, only to fill certain gaps in the requisite roles for the storytelling clichés. Saddest of the lot though is John Hurt, collecting a paycheck as Cotys, King of Thrace, choosing to barely try for half of the film, before hamming it up for the third act. Still, I give the cast credit for doing their best to sell every line or scene – it’s not their fault they have to sell this lousy bill of goods.
With the below average story and script, and the cast at least putting some effort into it, it’s the cinematography that ends up being the biggest mixed bag of the film. The special effects range from good to average, though the CGI sticks out like a sore thumb. The fight choreography and action scenes actually manage to be pretty good, though this is somewhat cheapened by the fact there are only four brief battle scenes in the entire movie. Costume and set design is a deeply frustrating hodgepodge of good – the costumes are pretty good, though whatever bonehead mixed up Greeks and Roman, to the point a plot point revolves around teaching soldiers how to use testudo tactics, needs to be put out of work – and wretchedly bad – the tribal Thracians are literally just half-naked people with scythes who can only screech, and the one scene they show up is almost derailed by how groan worthy they are. Overall though, there’s nothing here particularly spectacular.
That description could be used for the movie as a whole – though it’s not bad per se, it’s certainly unexceptional, save for the fact that it’s leagues better than most Hercules movies have been in the past. There are some glimmers of promise here – Dwane Johnson proves his abilities as a leading man, if only by keeping this movie from collapsing on itself, a Herculean feat in and of itself. The concept of deconstructing the myth is inventive, though its wasted on the botched execution of the clichés that filled its place. In most other areas though, the movie puts in the absolute bare minimum, and that’s what proves its undoing. If the script had been polished a bit more, or a director who put some effort behind the movie’s visuals had helmed this instead of Brett Ratner, this could have been a good movie, instead of merely a serviceable one.
While Hercules may not be nearly the train wreck some past adaptations have been, it still doesn’t measure up to the legend, or even a middling episode of the Hercules or Xena TV shows. If it caught your eye, by all means rent it once it comes to DVD, but it’s not worth seeing in theaters.
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