You know the hardest story for Hollywood so far has been? The story of Hercules. They have not been able to faithfully adapt this Greek Mythical tale about a man achieving Godhood for a good film. As things stand, the best movie for the character has been Disney's take on it, and it is not accurate. I'm not talking about that film though. I'm talking about one of the two Hercules films we got last year. The Brett Ratner directed feature starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the hero. I would hate to see the other take on this story, because this was the better one from last year and well... It's a film that turned out about as well as one would think knowing Brett Ratner.
The Pros: The casting is actually good. Dwayne Johnson is actually a good choice for Hercules today and he fills the role in great ways. The supporting characters and the antagonist are the same way. They do the best with what they have been given.
When we see practical effects, they look good. the weapons actually look heavy and you can see how some actors struggled a little with them. More the unnamed characters than the leads.
The Cons: The set and scale shots look like a video game, without the enjoyment of it. Let me explain, video games are made for the person to become involved in the world, become the character. if you try using that same visual in a movie, it just looks like cheap CGI, which this film has a lot of.
Bad camera work ruins any tension that should have been there during the fight scenes. I was never this bored during a fight scene in a movie, and I have seen all 4 Transformer movies and Battleship.
Where they could have used an old English style of speech, they go with a modern style of dialogue, which is more distracting and makes me yet again, want to play a video game instead of watch the movie. It also makes some laughable scenes as well where it doesn't fit, but they want to use a certain swear word just to use it. It's not hard to catch.
The pacing is atrocious! Parts that didn't need exploring got exploring and parts that needed it didn't get it. Towards the end it leaves you emotionally confused and not caring when the plot twist actually happens in the film, which you could see from a mile away just from general observation.
The magic of Hercules is not in this film. Greek Mythology is interesting because an element of Magic is involved. This movie doesn't have that and in the end, this could have been a movie about any character and it would have fit regardless. This could have been a movie about David Crocket saving the United States from a tyrant, and it wouldn't have been any different.
Final Verdict: 4/10 What damages this movie the most is how little the Director cared about this project. In the hands of someone else, this could have been a good movie. In the end, this movie is barely worth the first watch and maybe someday we could have a good Hercules film that is faithful to the original myth. It could have been this one, but it isn;t.
