
Just another Brett
Ratner ("Rush Hour"/"X-Men:
The Last Stand"/"Tower Heist") directed film I
didn't like. The blockbuster sword-and-sandals epic,
about the ancient mythical Greek demigod,
supposedly the son of Zeus, named after the queen of
heaven Hera, is watchable, fancifully staged and its
fast pace makes it easy to handle, but the acting is
wooden, the storytelling clunky and the incessant
slaughter is less than compelling. It's loosely based
on Radical Comics' Hercules by
the late Steve Moore, who disapproved of
this adaptation. Writers Ryan Condal and Evan
Spiliotopoulos keep it simple as a mere
popcorn escapist film, with no knowledge of antiquity
needed.
In 358
B.C., in ancient Greece, Hercules (Dwayne
Johnson) is viewed as a tormented soul, who must
complete his 12 super-human labors before free of the
jealous Hera's death threat and has one more to do
before he's home free (we do see the legend battle the
Nemean lion and slay the Lernaean hydra). Hercules is
also grief-stricken over the murder of his wife and
three children, but because of the rumor that he
killed them the strongman is booted from Athens. The
brooding Hercules finds five acolytes who believe in
him and they bond together as a loyal ragtag band of
mercenary warriors, fighting for gold and for one last
battle to get enough loot to retire in style.
The team
includes his spin-master legendary making
exaggerated storyteller nephew Iolaus (Reece
Ritchie), a spear-chucking seer fond of wrongly
predicting his own death (Ian McShane), the childhood
friend who is a wisecracking dagger man (Rufus
Sewell), the half-feral mute fierce warrior
(Aksel Hennie) and a blonde Amazon with a bow and
arrow (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal). The group agree to go to
Thrace and fight against the marauder Rhesus (Tobias Santelmann)
and his supposed centaurs, who is burning
innocent villages, when recruited by the lovely
Princess Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson),
who represents her ambitious dad, Lord Cotys
(John Hurt). He wants his farmer subjects trained to
be a great army by Hercules to fight with the legend
against Rhesus' army. The widow Ergenia is protective
of her young wide-eyed son Arius (Isaac
Andrews), whom she expects to be the future king
of Thrace and is distant from the venal King
Eurystheus (Joseph Fiennes), of
Athens, and his secret conniving partner, her power
hungry dad.


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