Hercules never quite embraces itself. Attempting to put a spin on the Greek demigod’s origins, Hercules has some fun and does some interesting things, but it contorts itself too much to arrive at a satisfying conclusion. However, it does have a picture of The Rock wearing a lion’s head during war, so….
Hercules (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is a self-aware mercenary. Using the spread of rumors and stories from his cousin Iolaus (Reece Ritchie) as well as his trusted team (Amphiaraus [Ian McShane], Autolycus [Rufus Sewell], Tydeus [Askell Hennie], Atalanta [Ingrid Bolso Bergdal]) of loyal followers, Hercules grows his legend but in reality is just a clever man-for-hire. Needing one last payment, Hercules is hired by Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt) of Thrace, to eliminate the dissent in the kingdom. While Hercules and his team help mold the farmers into warriors, Hercules starts to see parallels between Ergenia and his own past, and starts to resoften his own heart.
Other than the Rock’s biceps, Hercules plays it too safe. This is a PG-13 movie with multiple wars, violence toward kids, and open sexual call-outs. Director Brett Ratner is known for playing broad with his movies to attract as big an audience as possible. The premise is actually pretty clever: what if Hercules wasn’t actually Zeus’s son, and his labors were rumors and hearsay? This would make Hercules more erudite but physically weaker, and could lead to a fascinating climax where Hercules has to use questionable strength for good. Equally, Hercules could have been a giant pile of crazy battles, with Hercules and his 5 men rampaging over puny human armies. Instead, we get half of each, leaving a story that’s somewhat fun and somewhat intriguing, but never is quite in on the joke or embraces the premise.
Also, the story is too clogged. In addition to Hercules’s lengthy 12 Labors backstory, we get some family and political history for the star in addition to a few other character backstories. This sets up a situation where several resolutions need to occur outside of the main story, which wraps up in about 60 minutes. As such, the last 30 minutes rushes to completion to the point that truncation skips some necessary steps and elevates characters that were barely mentioned early on. Grant it, some of the stuff that happens looks cool visually, but I will be hard press to find someone who is moved by what they saw.
The acting is mostly bland. Dwayne Johnson can flex and bulge with the best of the giant men, but brings nothing to the title character. Some of that is the scripts fault, but Johnson mostly broods or screams with no real in between. Most of the supporting cast in Hercules isn’t very good either with a few exceptions. Rufus Sewell and Peter Mullan bring something weird to each of their characters in what could easily have been one note performances. However, Ian McShane steals the show as Amphiaraus. McShane’s character is in on the joke, ready to die at a moments notice, easily the best running gag in the film.
Hercules is summer passable entertainment. It doesn’t ruffle the feathers, but it doesn’t really fail anywhere too miserably either. The Rock continues to puzzle me as a performer. If I had to guess, he got PAID for Hercules, and I think there’s a correlation between how much cooking the Rock smells and how willing he is to earn his keep.