Hercules (2014) - Ratner and Johnson's forgettable noisemaker

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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?

Tower Heist (2011) - Ratner's so-so financial crisis comedy

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The two comedy stars of Brett Ratner's Tower Heist

QUICK REVIEW:

The staff of one of New York's most exclusive penthouse buildings, The Tower, are deprived of their pensions, when it turns out that the owner is a swindler. But their leader Kovacs (Ben Stiller (While We're Young (2014))) has a plan!

Tower Heist brings together an impressive cast in a handsome, enthusiastic movie with a spectacular heist, (during the Thanksgiving parade, with a gold car out of the building (...!)), a well made score by Christophe Beck (Frozen (2013)) and fine photography by Dante Spinotti (Heat (1995)).
And yet this heist comedy, which puts Stiller and Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls (2006)) in the same frame for the first time, never results in any raucous laughter. It also contains some pretty weak characters and just enough disingenuous plot points that it stays too grounded to really succeed.
It is written by Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven (2001)) and Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2 (2001)), with story contributions from a handful of others, and directed by Brett Ratner (Money Talks (1997)). The film is based on an idea of Murphy's, presented in 2005, which was to be an all-black ensemble comedy called Trump Heist. - Ironically, this sounds potentially more promising than the Tower Heist that eventually came to be.

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Cost: 75 mil. $ (after 10 mil. $ in tax rebates)
Box office: 152.9 mil. $
= Minor flop
[Tower Heist unsurprisingly sparked some diva behavior, as Stiller and Murphy were brought together with Stiller getting 15 mil. $ to play the lead in the film devised and co-produced by Murphy, who got 'just' 7.5 mil. $: Murphy, whose career was nowhere near Stiller's at the time, (granted), would only film an alternate ending if he was paid an additional 500k $. Universal had a plan to release the film on VoD just three weeks after its theatrical release as a test, but had to abandon the plan after cinema chains threatened to dump the film if they did. Tower Heist opened #2 with a 24 mil. $ first weekend in North America, (behind Puss in Boots), and grossed 78 mil. $ (51 % of the total gross) domestically.]

What do you think of Tower Heist?