Hercules is here, again! “Hercules” is the second Hercules based movie to be released this year, after “The Legend of Hercules” was pronounced dead on arrival after its release earlier this year. The film is based on the Radical comics Hercules, where Hercules, played by Dwayne “no longer The Rock” Johnson”, is a travelling mercenary that exists in a more realistic version of the mythology filled Ancient Greece that we’ve seen in so many previous Hercules films.
I was surprised by this movie in a very pleasant way, because the trailer is an outright lie. The trailer presents the film as an origin story, which it thankfully isn’t. I won’t write anything definite, because it’ll ruin the surprise of the film, and that’s probably the films biggest positive. Not that the rest is bad, it just isn’t great. “Hercules” follows the long standing tradition of popcorn movies by being average enough in every aspect to try and attract the largest audience possible, and there’s nothing wrong with that, because it knows it.
This comes out strong in the films writing. Most of the dialogue consist of the general exposition and snappy one liners you hear in every other blockbuster, which does seem to restricts the actors quite a bit, especially Rufus Sewell, who plays the thief Autolycus. When you have an actor as talented as Sewell stuck in a role that’s clearly been very heavily pre-written and directed, the character loses a lot of his likeability. That being said, Ian McShane does a wonderful job playing the seer Amphiaraus, even with some poor writing near the end if the film.
Now, onto the former Rock, Dwayne Johnson. I think his casting as Hercules was fantastic. Sure, his acting wasn’t entirely convincing, and the role isn’t written to make him seem as powerful as he does in say, the Fast and the Furious movies, but in terms of looks, he’s excellent for the role. Not perfect, no, Kevin Sorbro was perfect, but Johnson is a hair’s breadth away. He’s outstanding in the action sequences, perfectly showing off the brute strength of Hercules, while his companions handle the more acrobatic stunts of the film.
“Hercules” is nice to look at, especially during the opening sequences where the set design has a very over the top, comic book look to it. The rest of the film is fairly colourful, which is something that’s an increasing rarity in popcorn movies. The soundtrack for the most part goes fairly unnoticed, as this film suffers from what I like to call the “Curse of Hans Zimmer”, where the entire score, and the score of about 90% of all other major movies, sounds like a simplified version of the Dark Knight’s score, so don’t look for an extreme amount of innovation in that department.
Overall Verdict: If you have a free afternoon, there are certainly much worse ways you can spend it than seeing “Hercules”. It’s the kind of movie I’d happily pay to see; once.