Finally got to see Hercules
SPOILER FREE
Before going into this, I told myself there was absolutely no way this film could be worse than Legend of Hercules which came out in January of this year. That film has the honor of being one one of the very worst pictures of 2014 thus far next to I Frankenstein and Transformers: The Age of SHIT. Oh pardon me, I don't know where that came from. Looks like I still got some anger on the inside from watching that one. Anyways, I knew that no matter how good or bad this one turned out, it was always gonna be a step up from the trainwreck Renny Harlin gave us. Now that I have seen the movie I can confirm without a doubt that my theory is absolutely correct. This is an improvement over Legend of Hercules. HOWEVER....that doesn't mean it was very good. It was entertaining to almost being mediocre. An important thing to note is that this isn't a true Hercules movie, this is just a vehicle for Dwayne Johnson to do his thing just like how the Scorpion King was to him. Don't worry this movies better than The Scorpion King. Dwayne is one of the high points of the film and continues to demonstrate his charisma as an action star and giving you a reason to take whatever films he does seriously. Other pros are the supporting cast with Ian McShane stealing the show. I loved his bit with the arrows. The action scenes are fairly well done and go ridiculously over the top at times, and the costume and art-set decoration makes the film feel authentic. The negatives of the film stem from a weak script that makes the film come off as being far too short and lacking story and plot development in alot of areas. The dialogue isn't as crisp and clever as other epics like Gladiator, but the cast does the best job with what they had. The directing of this film by Brett Ratner, who helmed Rush Hour 1 2 3, Red Dragon, Money Talks, and XMEN 3 (Fuck that movie), doesn't feel suitable for a film of this epic scope and magnitude. It needs someone like Ridley Scott who knows how to make it thrilling but have a sense or wonder and authenticity to it. It just comes off as a mediocre piece of entertainment that lacks a true soul and is ultimately going to amount to only one rental from Redbox in the long run instead of having a run of being a well respected blockbuster with depth and style. Hercules is the kind of movie that you watch with a few friends and maybe have a few drinks while watching, but then you immediately disregard it afterwards as being nothing more than average popcorn entertainment. That may be fine for some audiences, but a story as epic as Hercules deserves so much better, especially after two misfired attempts at making the character appear larger than life. Hopefully someone will do proper justice to this character someday as the results currently are unsatisfactory.
6 out of 10
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