What’s it about?
After his legendary labours, Hercules and his band of friends work as mercenaries to save enough gold to forget the past. Along the way they train a bunch of greeks who wear red and yellow Iron Man armour.
What did we think?
Anthony Sherratt says: Despite a lacklustre and seemingly cliched trailer, Hercules is actually a surprisingly fun action romp. It doesn’t reach any real heights but what is there will keep you entertained. Ratner’s decision to start the movie AFTER the mythological labours really works especially considering the rather intelligent sub-plot of spin doctoring. The fight scenes are well done and Dwayne Johnson does well after a slow warm-up but what really makes the movie is the strength of the supporting cast with Rufus Sewell, John Hurt and Rebecka Ferguson impressing. Not excellent but a whole lot of quality small parts combine to make a fun movie.
So much of the negative press on this movie appears to be focusing on the fact that the trailer (featuring footage from the labours of Hercules) looked cool but is actually all used in the first five minutes in montage. I actually think that’s a STRENGTH, especially given the premise the whole ‘legend’ is simply spin doctoring. And while the labours were indeed completed it was a team of people not just one man. In fact the graphic sequence in the end credits actually revisits the ‘labours’ showing the same labours but how the entire team took the monsters down. I thought that was clever.
Interesting.