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| Dwayne Johnson allegedly trained for something like 8 months for his portrayal of Brett Ratner's Hercules |
Hercules, Zeus' half-human/half-God son, has lost his own family, but he fails to remember how. With his band of mercenaries, he fights for Thrace and an answer.
This is as close to a plot summary as I can come after watching this unvisionary revival of the Greek myth figure and movie hero by great Florida-born filmmaker Brett Ratner (Red Dragon (2002)). It is an adaptation of Steve Moore's (Red Fang (2000)) graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars (2008) by Ryan Condal (Colony (2015-), TV-series) and Evan Spiliotopoulos (The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008), video).
Hercules is a visually polished, uninspired presentation of general ruckus without a single scene that stands out after it is over.
The cast is not too shabby at all: Dwayne Johnson (Faster (2010)) is dedicated in the title lead, Reece Ritchie (The Lovely Bones (2009)) is a snack to behold; (so why doesn't Ratner gratuitize him more than he does, (this is a sword-and-sandal movie, dammit!)), and John Hurt (The Elephant Man (1980)) and Ian McShane (Coraline (2009)) light up some, although they all deserve better direction and a better script than what they're given here.
Hercules, at least (?), is committed to being silly, as it provides ludicrous lines such as; "Fucking centaurs!"
Related posts:
Brett Ratner: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Tower Heist (2011) - Ratner's so-so financial crisis comedy
Watch the trailer for the movie here
Cost: 100 mil. $
Box office: 243.3 mil. $
= Minor flop
[Moore, who died a few months before the film's release, apparently didn't receive any payment for his graphic novel's use for the film. Hercules came out in a year in which Hollywood (by chance) released two major Hercules titles: The Kellan Lutz-starring The Legend of Hercules (2014) came out earlier in the year and bombed, (it is apparently a lot worse than Ratner's film!) Hercules opened #2 domestically to 29 mil. $, behind Lucy (2014), to reasonable reviews, based often on benevolence towards Johnson. The film grossed 72.6 mil. $ (29.8 % of the total gross) in North America. It opened #1 in countries like Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Singapore. 6 mil. $ (2.5 %) of the gross came from IMAX. The film's 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia (22.2 mil. $/9%) and Brazil (14.2 mil. $/5.8 %). Hercules is fresh at 60 % with a 5.4 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Hercules?
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