Hercules review

HERCULES:

THE ROCK SHINES AS THE GREEK GOD IN THIS ENJOYABLY SILLY RETELLING OF THE ICONIC LEGEND!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** 1/2 out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND MGM

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson fights for good and looks buff as Hercules

            Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour trilogy, X-Men 3: The Last Stand, Tower Heist) and former wrestling superstar, Dwayne Johnson, better known as The Rock (The Scorpion King, Fast & Furious franchise, G.I. Joe: Retaliation) join forces to bring a new retelling of the classic story about the legend of Hercules, based on the Radical Comics series by Steve Moore. Thankfully it’s not like the other Hercules movie that came out at the beginning of this year, The Legend of Hercules, which opened to unanimously negative reviews and became one of the biggest box office bombs since Cutthroat Island.

            This new Hercules is okay which is a a huge improvement over Legend because there was actual effort put into it even though it's mostly a mindless, crowd-pleasing blockbuster that chooses style over substance, and some of the creature effects on the Hydra, lion, and Cerberus, while nothing fancy, they look decent enough to overshadow some of the film’s cheesy effects, and let’s not forget Dwayne fighting soldiers and looking buff, it’s over-the-top, entertaining trash.

            The half God, half human, Hercules is the leader of a group of mercenaries that was formed by the prophet, Amphiaraus (Ian McShane-Coraline, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Jack the Giant Slayer), thief, Autolycus (Rufus Sewell-The Legend of Zorro, The Illusionist, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), warrior, Tydeus (Aksei Hennie-Headhunters), archer, Atlanta (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal-Chernobyl Diaries, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters), who is basically a female version of Orlando Bloom’s Legolas in The Lord of the Rings franchise, and the storyteller, Iolaus (Reece Ritchie-10,000 BC, The Lovely Bones, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), who desperately desires to have his heart pierced by a flaming arrow in battle for the sake of the legend.

            It is said Hercules is the demigod son of Zeus, the king of Gods (Who we never see in this adaptation, by the way!), because he completed the legendary tasks known as the Twelve Labors, only to be betrayed by one of the three sisters of Zeus, Hera, who drove him insane and caused him to murder his wife, Megara (Irina Shayk) and children, during a visit with King Eurystheus (Joseph Fiennes-Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas).

            Since the great tragedy, Hercules rejected Zeus and chose to live his life as a mortal, and is often tormented by frightening visions of the three-headed monster known as Cerberus, pet of Hades, Lord of the Underworld (Who we also never see in this film!). One day Hercules and his crew are visited by Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), the daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt-Alien, Harry Potter franchise, Hellboy), who asks Hercules to train the armies of Thrace to protect the kingdom from the bloodthirsty warlord, Rheseus (Tobias Santelmann) and his army of Centaurs.

            During his time of training the armies, Hercules and his crew realize dark truths about what happened in the past and a secret being hidden by Cotys. So it’s up to Hercules, his mercenary crew, and an entire army to discover the truth about Cotys and preserve the peace before it’s too late.

            Overall, this new Hercules movie is mindless fun, almost like a so bad it's good movie. The film has very laughable dialogue, the story is absurd with some of the choices made, and the visual effects often look cheap.

            With that said, the creature effects and fight choreography can be fun to watch, but other times it just looks like a poor man’s version of Gladiator. Also Dwayne Johnson is very enjoyable to watch as Hercules, you can tell he’s having fun with the role and even if the writing is laughably bad, it’s nice to see him try and pull something off with it.

            If you just want to see some over the top action and cheesy dialogue and not care about a strong plot or character development, you should have a fun time with this movie. However, if you want something silly with more substance to it, I'd suggest seeing Edge of Tomorrow or just wait for Guardians of the Galaxy. 

            A significant improvement over The Legend of Hercules, but I'd still recommend sticking with the Disney animated movie, sure it isn't a perfect movie, but it's much better crafted and more fun to watch than either one of these other Hercules films.