"Hercules" Review

Hercules

2.5 out of 5 stars

Family appropriateness rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Rated PG-13

-Brutal action violence. 

-There is blood, but it is mostly shown after the fact. It is never seen leaving the body.

-Some frightening images.

-Brief backside female nudity for less than a second. There is also a part in which a breast is almost shown, but the woman covers herself before it is.

If Dwayne Johnson did not play the title character in "Hercules," it would have probably been a made-for-tv movie. 

Hercules is a demigod who goes on various missions with his group of friends to make money. They get hired by Cotys (John Hurt), the king of a Greek area called Thrace, to help him overthrow his enemy, Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann), who has been causing a lot of destruction in the land. The movie is about how Hercules trains an army and leads them to find and capture Rhesus. 

There is not much more to say about the film. It is a very simple movie, and frankly it is bland. When there is not any action, it goes into some boring dialogue with boring characters about where they came from. Some of the backstories are interesting, but you also have to sit through some dry banter before hearing them. 

With Hercules, the sky is the limit. The filmmakers could have given us an epic tale from his life. What we get is some generic plot that seems like a bad Syfy Channel Original Movie. The characters are bland, and there is very little that distinguishes them from one another. The only ones that I find remotely interesting are Iolaus (Reece Ritchie), the storyteller, and Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), the man who can see pieces of the future. 

Dwayne Johnson's performance is what anyone would expect from him. He is not exactly an Academy-Award-worthy actor. He is a muscle head who was once a professional wrestler. His acting ability reflects his previous career, and there were times I thought I was watching World Wrestling Entertainment. 

To make his role worthwhile, he should have talked less and fought more. Some of the action scenes brutal, hard hitting and cool. When there is a throw down, it is very entertaining. However, the action scenes are so few and far between, that it is ultimately not worth seeing.

This movie gets half a star more than I thought it would because of the third act. There is a twist at the end of the second act that was unexpected and interesting. The last part deals with Hercules's backstory, and the resolution is well-executed.  

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