Hercules?

One thing Hollywood has never gotten right about the Greek myth of Zeus's son is the name. Hercules is the Roman name for the Greek myth while Heracles is the Greek name. Yes every iteration of the character uses the Roman name with Greek everything else. Small nitpick, and it'll probably never be fixed. So let's move on.

Of all Hercules movies, the Disney version is widely known for being one of the lease accurate depictions of the legend. Leave it to Brett Ratner to one-up someone in doing it wrong. Remember, this is the guy who nearly single-handedly destroyed the X-Men franchise. THE X-MEN!!!! *deep breath* Woosah. Woosah...

Anyway.

Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson, is the least faithful to the legend of all tellings that I've seen or heard of. At first, I didn't have a problem with this. It tried to approach the story in a realistic fashion. As we know, the legends of Greek mythologies are a bit exaggerated from what really happened. So this film is showing what could have happened with a real man named Hercules who inspired the legends.

But wait a minute, didn't the trailers show Hercules going all out and killing these legendary creatures like the Hydra? Yes, yes it did. And you do get to see that... in the first 7 minutes of the movie. These tasks that Hercules is known for, his labours, which included slaying the Hydra, slaying the Nemean Lion, killing the Erymanthian Boar, are all done in montage with a voice over. Then the voice over is revealed to be one of Hercules's partners, who I forget his name and don't really care to look up. He tells these tales of Hercules's labours to bring fear to the enemy and inspire allies. So, basically, they're all lies.

Now, I'm not one to judge a movie for not delivering on what I expect. Nor am I really going to hold a movie to what the trailer promised. For those that don't know, trailers are typically made by people who aren't involved with the production of the film. They're just paid to make something that will get people to buy tickets. Sometimes a trailer will lie and what actually is presented is far better. A good example is The Grey. Advertised as Taken with wolves while it was actually a survival-horror/philosophical/existential thriller. Some were disappointed; I was enamored.

At first I was interested. I like to think of myself as somewhat of a skeptic, so I like stories that play with "what is known may be false" angle. I'm enjoying how Hercules and his companions, who are just a band of mercenaries, use their friend's gift of story-telling to their advantage to both obtain jobs and frighten those they oppose.

On paper this sounds kind of fun. Unfortunately, as shown with X-Men The Last SttttaaaaaaAAAAHHHH--- Woosah... Brett Ratner somehow finds a way to suck the joy out of it. You find that without his labours, Hercules is an incredibly boring character. And other than Ian McShane, the characters surrounding him are just as boring. The dog-like mad man. The best-friend from war. The Woman. The younger relative who can't fight and he doesn't want to be harmed. Then you throw all these characters in a tired "train my men so we can fight a war" story with your typical twists and turns. If you can't see where this movie is heading after 20 minutes, you probably haven't seen many movies.

I will admit, there are some fun moments in this film. There's 2 big battle sequences that, for the most part, are well-done for a PG-13 movie. Dirt and mud serve as a substitute for blood. It's not quite the same, but it's still something to see small particles fly off a person when they're hit. Even if the enemies are rejects from 300, they have some moments where they seem threatening. There's also a few details through the first two acts that show how Hercules and his friends keep their legend alive. A good example is when Hercules takes an arrow tip in his fist and punches a guy in the face with it. No one except his companions saw the arrow tip, so to everyone else it appears that Hercules killed a man with a single blow. There are a few clever moments that this for the first hour.

Unfortunately, everything that gets built up from the first two acts of Hercules just being a normal man and a group who uses the power of perception and exaggeration to make it seem as if he were "More than just a man." The movie takes a hard left turn and has him do things that completely break all the rules set up in the first two acts. All of a sudden, a man of just superior human strength becomes a man of god-like strength. Why? Because the plot needed him to escape an impossible situation. Why was he there? Because the plot needed him to do something stupid to get there. Then the last 20 minutes just go against everything set up in the first hour and change for this big battle between Hercules and his friends and an army culminating and an outlandish final moment. Yes, the previous parts of the movie were boring. But you can't just break your own rules for no reason. Fully commit to the story you want to tell, or at least give the possibility throughout the entire film that things could be more than what's let on.

If I had to tell the story of Hercules in a "realistic" manner that played with the notion that the legend is an exaggeration, I would show how the story came to be. I wouldn't just have someone be telling the story to tell you that it's an exaggeration. I would show you what really happened along side with the storyteller's exaggerations. That could be a cool movie. But, as it stands, Hercules is just another typical action movie.

NOT RECOMMENDED