For seven months Dwayne Johnson ate seven high protein meals a day, consisting of 10oz steaks, cups of rice, tonnes of chicken and blueberry protein powder. This helped him stay in absolute tip top shape for Hercules. And it shows. Johnson has never looked bigger or better with muscles upon muscles. All of which are incredibly well lit and oiled in his latest big screen outing, Hercules.
Directed by Brett Ratner (steady!!!) this doesn’t tell the tale of Hercules’ 2 labours. Instead it shoves them into a montage in the opening four minutes. Lions, Boars and Hyrdras all meet their grisly demise in around 240 seconds and audiences will be left wondering what kind of story is Ratner about to tell. Not a very good one it seems.
Hercules and his bunch of comrades are swords for hire and find themselves training a bunch of glorified farmers to battle a tyrannical warlord. Coupled with a “save the young boy” scenario, Ratner has delivered a rather impressive looking movie and not much else, besides a rather spectacular and decent final 15 minutes. It’s the visuals, costumes and big, sweeping vistas that audiences will notice first. They look incredible and the attention to detail in the weaponry, costumes and gigantic, practical sets are second to none. This is one of the best looking movies this year.
If as much thought, let alone time, went into the script, then this would have been a fantastic cinematic experience. Dwayne Johnson, almost parodying his Rock persona in places, with funny one liners, is as likeable as he always is. However, his accent and disastrous hair do make him stand out like a bull in a china shop. And while this is indeed the “Brahma Bull” he’s just a bit too big and too funny to be taken completely seriously in ancient Greece. His supporting cast fit into their ancient surroundings far better and it’s Ian McShanes rather inspired, waiting for death performance that delivers some genuine moments of humour, compared to Johnson’s “for the sake of it” humour. However, John Hurt’s performance is rather pitiful. At times the actor seems like a lost homeless person, just wandering around the set.
But a half decent cast can’t save a story that constantly falls over itself delivering pointless scene after pointless scene, with about as much flow as a dried up river. If you’re not going to tell the 12 labours of Hercules, then you better make damn sure you’re going to do something decent. And this is the biggest labour (sorry) for the movie. The story. It’s utterly pointless and incredibly weak with dialogue that tries to be clever and inspiring, but just falls flat on it’s spear.
Visually Hercules is superb and with a half decent cast to boot, it does entertain in places and the final 15 or so minutes are rather brilliant. However, the bad outweighs the good here, and while you could watch alot worse, this will leave you feeling like the Rock after coming off his 7 meals a day diet plan. Empty and wondering did you block the toilet!
