Movie Reviews
Hercules
Released: 25th July 2014
Directed By: Brett Ratner
Starring: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, John Hurt
Certificate: 12A
Reviewed By: Ren Zelen
One can understand why Hollywood keeps on loving Hercules – he is a god-like superhero character celebrated throughout the ages, yet his likeness remains royalty-free. Oh joy.
Brett Ratner’s ‘Hercules’ is the latest attempt to bring the character to a grateful public (or not so grateful perhaps, as the last movie, ‘The Legend of Hercules’ by action flick director Renny Harlin, was such a resounding flop). It is based on the Radical Comics’ graphic novel by Steve Moore (although inevitably this adaptation has already been dissed and dismissed by graphic novel legend Alan Moore, in full rant form). Steven Moore’s story, as interpreted by director Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand, Rush Hour 3) tantalises us by refusing to let us know whether Hercules is actually a god and indicates that he is simply a very muscled-up man in some nifty armour. The vaunted demi-god might actually be completely mortal and his semi-divine status an ancient form of public-relations hype and sleight-of-hand theatricality intended to scare enemies and increase his earning power. So far, so Hollywood.
Ratner tries to engage our sympathy with his hero by the tragic backstory of how Hercules (who did not seek glory, dear old thing, but only wanted to be a husband and father) suffers the loss of his nubile wife and young family who have been slaughtered under circumstances which seem to indicate that he himself might be have been guilty of the deed. The pain and shame have driven him far from his home and the story picks up the events some years after his departure from Athens in disgrace. Hercules (Dwayne Johnson), known throughout ancient Greece as the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, is now a rootless mercenary, selling his strength and skills as a warrior to the highest bidder. He is followed by a loyal band of adventurers, including the seer, Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), not too reliable with his predictions but rather good with the occasional bon-mot or quip, the stoutly British accented vagabond Autolycus (Rufus Sewell) a strangely Nordic Amazon Atalanta (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) and Tydeus, a mute, battle-scarred loon with wild eyes and uncouth sleeping habits, (Askel Henne). This itinerant group is his second family. They say they fight for gold but privately they declare they actually fight for one another – it’s all very heart-warming really.
Meanwhile in Thrace, Southern California… sorry, I mean, Thrace, Ancient Greece, Lord Cotys (John Hurt) hires these mercenaries to train a rag-tag group of farmers and peasants to become the greatest army of all time – an army as ruthless and bloodthirsty as the reputation of Hercules himself should guarantee, to defeat a vicious enemy… or so he says.
There is a lot of fighting, in fact, almost the entire film is taken up with fighting. Ratner allows only the briefest time between battles to explain what exactly is being fought over, or to establish any human relationships, in case they get in the way of more fighting.
The battle scenes are staged with commendable zest and vigour. Ratner throws in Ben-Hur like chariot chases and plentiful moments in which Hercules stabs and clubs his various enemies to death, fights off outsized animals by ripping open their jaws, slices the multiple heads off Hydras or shoves over statues of the goddess Hera (who’s always had it in for him, he being her husband Zeus’s illegitimate offspring n’all). Hercules himself (played by the very muscular and charisma-free, Dwayne Johnson) barely registers a scratch throughout the many bloody brawls and melees and occasionally looks disconcertingly like frontiersman Davy Crockett during scenes in which he must wear a hat made out of a lion’s pelt.
The demi-god of steroid abuse even gets to make an attempt at a rather truncated Agincourt-style speech to muster his baying troops and to show his mastery of war-craft. There is some impossible archery from a feisty and agile Atalanta (although personally I never imagined an Amazonian woman to be merely a buffed-up version of Nicole Kidman, but there you go…) some cunning spear-wielding and knife-throwing tricks from Autolycus, and… Tydeus tends to throw himself at things and hack at them with a couple of hatchets.
It’s all rather preposterous, but there is certainly lots of action, fairly unobtrusive 3D, a tone that doesn’t take itself too seriously and lashings of CGI. All of which make ‘Hercules’ pretty reasonable Summer Matinee fun – but somehow I don’t think it will be breaking any box office records, no matter how many heads it takes immense glee in breaking .
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