Hercules
This
has nothing to do
with Hercules,
but I have to mention it. Tonight, I saw something I have never seen at
a movie. One of the patrons (a younger, college age person) brought his
own neck pillow. Society is getting weaker by the minute. Hercules
would never need a neck pillow!!!!
Set in 358 BC, Dwayne “We Will Always Call You The
Rock” Johnson stars as Hercules – the son of Zeus
and a noble man who has become bitter due to life and circumstance.
This demigod once was considered a great and conquering hero, but,
after the brutal murder of his wife and children, Hercules
couldn’t care less about society. He doesn’t want
to be a role model! Hercules and his buddies have become the bloodiest
and most savage mercenaries available for hire, but this latest job
changes the big buff strongman and his pals.
The kingdom of Thrace is being torn apart by civil war, so Lord Cotys
(John Hurt) and his lovely daughter, Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), hire
this band of merry men (and one lady) to train their army to be as
savage and nasty as they can be to hunt down the rebel leader, Rhesus
(Tobias Santelmann). However, Ergenia stirs something in
Hercules’s soul (and his loin cloth) making him question the
life he has been leading.
When he has a chance to stand up for right vs. wrong, will Hercules be
man enough to make the right decision?
Hercules
is funnier than Tammy
and Sex Tape
combined! Granted, I don’t think it was supposed to be THAT
funny, but it is hard to take a movie seriously when the hero is
parading around with a lion’s skull on top of his head.
Also, writers Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos are trying to get
plenty of laughs in the partly campy send up of the Hercules we have
seen over and over again in movies and on television. Director Brett
Ratner and the cast embrace all of the silly dialogue, wise cracks and
bad attempts at British accents to bring some amusement to the maudlin
tale.
However, it doesn’t always work. Ratner and the crew want to
have their cake and eat it to by relying on the campiness to get the
audience laughing, but those scenes don’t mesh well with the
more serious moments. Laughing doesn’t combine well with The
Rock trying to give his big Braveheart
speech or when he’s looking all haunted and disturbed when we
flashback to Hercules’s horrific past.
Hercules
gets bogged down in those more serious moments, but Ratner moves
through those quite quickly to get to the big fight scenes.
It’s all about special effects, not emotional ones! Unlike
most directors these days, Ratner actually knows how to film these
scenes, so the audience isn’t left dizzy and confused by
poorly framed action and jiggly cameras. You can follow these fight
scenes without getting nauseous, which doesn’t happen in 95%
of action movies in theaters.
Hercules
should have been heroic, or it should have been campy, but combining
the two doesn’t make for a great movie. It’s a
movie you can enjoy and forget.
Hercules
is rated PG-13 for epic battle
sequences, violence, suggestive comments, brief strong language and
partial nudity.
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