Visitors Review

Fiendish_Dramaturgy (2012-05-26 01:29)

Vastly Dated, But Great Fun...In Spite of Bava's Involvement

I found this work to be highly enjoyable. In spite of the age of thiswork and the total lack of anything even remotely Eye-Candyqualifiable, I was able to enjoy this production. Hercules looked like Hercules. The screenplay itself was based on(however loosely) two MUCH older plays written by Sophocles (circa 495BCE) and Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BCE), and attempts to regale us with aHerculean tale of myth and magic. I found it fun in spite of its age, and the story (while virtuallyunrecognizable from the original sources) was coherent and adventurousas it takes you from beginning to end. There wasn't anything ploddingabout this. It was quite entertaining. Not "rousing," but entertaining.The story itself is fun and frothy bolstered with energeticperformances, costumes so obviously new as to make you chuckle, andsets done in the same way. You'll even recognize a few stock sets usedin about a hundred movies from the same era.I've NEVER been a fan of Mario Bava's film style. His dizzying anglesand in-and-out focus is nauseating. Thankfully, he left those (the mostannoying of his pitiful repertoire) out of this film.It rates a 6.3/10 from...the Fiend :.

Jeff (2012-05-25 10:32)

Tedious but still enjoyable

Hercules Unchained is a nice little tale that drags in the middle but isstill fun to watch. Steve Reeves once again plays the demigod of myth.Even though his acting is a little rough, his look, charisma and physiquemake him one of the most natural and dignified presentations of Herculestodate. His commanding presence is very deserving of the character. Theplotcenters around a feud between two brothers, Eteocles and Polinices.Hercules agrees to mediate between the two but gets waylaid and loses hismemory after drinking the waters of forgetfulness. He ends up in theexotichands of Omphale, played by Sylvia Lopez, and the brothers move closer toawar in Hercules' hometown of Thebes. The movie drags big time while Herciswith Omphale but is spliced with many scenes of Sergio Fantoni, who givesafun performance as the crazed Eteocles, and the gorgeous Sylvia Koscina,whoreprises her role as Hercules' wife Iole. Gabriele Antonini plays a youngUlysses and goes a nice job of conveying maturity while also displayingyouthful exuberance. Sylvia Lopez does a decent job as Omphale and heroffbeat look is fitting for the character. The two biggest problems of thefilm are it's tediousness (which often occurs in sweeping epics) and it'sconvoluted plot which seems to take too much for granted without clearlypresenting plot points. There's also something about Egyptians which isnever really gone over with any detail. Otherwise, I thought the moviewasa pretty enjoyable experience.5.3/10

Aaron1375 (2012-05-22 10:07)

The best thing I can say about this movie is at least the guy playing Hercules looked the part.

Yes, the lead here looks like Hercules and there are a lot of ladiesprancing around in skimpy costumes, but that does not a good moviemake. The story is a jumbled mess that really does not flow well, theactors are not the best of caliber, and of course it doesn't help thatthis Hercules movie does not have all that much action in it. In fact,most of the movie seemingly has Hercules sitting around on a chair andmaking it with a strange looking gal. Meanwhile, there is a war aboutto break out between two brothers I think, but can not be 100%positive. There is also a rather pointless scene where Hercules mustfight some guy who always gets back up and laughs annoyingly. Herc hashis companions and his wife to worry about as well, but for the mostpart you are going to want to drink those waters of forgetfulness thatsend the movie to the very long pointless subplot of Herc in theclutches of the very bizarre island girl and her many serving girls.All in all just not enough of a plot or action to get anyone's interestup.

dbdumonteil (2012-05-21 16:09)

Antigone ,where were you when we needed you?

Certainly one of the best movies in the otherwise undistinguishedHercules movies of the late fifties/early sixties,as well as SteveReeves ' best along with "Romolo E Remo".The screenplay blends true Greek mythology (the seven versus Thebes, ablind Oedipus and his two sons vying for power) with the usual drivel:Hercules captured by an evil queen who falls in love with him andmakes him forget all his past :brainwashing as usual;she uses amaleficent water.And they say "stay sober!"What a nonsense here! Oddly,a young Ulysses accompanies the hero in his adventures.The futureinventor of the Trojan horse was already smart enough not to drink ofthat water and to pretend he was deaf and blind when he met the queen.All that concerns Thebes is entertaining and even interesting and it 'sa pity that the writers were not as smart as Ulysses and did not throwall the queen's scenes in the trash can and,instead, introduce ,forinstance ,Antigone,who led her blind father out of the city and playeda prominent part just after her brothers' death.Maybe Steve Reeveswould have saved her.Lovely Sylva Koscina would have done nicely inthis part and would have been more than purely decorative.

frankfob (2012-05-19 06:04)

OK early T&A (Steve Reeves' T, Sylva Koscina's A), kind of

"Hercules Unchained," the sequel to Steve Reeves' mega-hit "Hercules,"isn't quite what I remembered it to be. Reeves definitely has the lookof Hercules, much more so than most of the bodybuilders who followed orimitated him in these movies, and he's actually not a bad actor, allthings considered. Sylva Koscina, playing his wife, is absolutelybreathtaking. She just radiates class, is spectacularly beautiful andhas a body to die for. Sylvia Lopez, as Queen Oomphale, is another casealtogether. Although she's quite leggy and has a great body, andthankfully doesn't mind showing it, she's frankly not all thatattractive, looks to be wearing about 50 pounds of makeup and a gallonof lip gloss, and is, to be honest, not a very good actress. However,that doesn't matter much, as she has a whole slew of young, gorgeous,scantily clad servant girls prancing and slinking around, which is apleasant distraction. The action scenes aren't as good as I recalledthem--I saw it the other day for first time in probably 30 years andwas actually quite disappointed. Hercules' fight with a tiger islaughable--almost as phony as Victor Mature's fight with the lion in"Samson and Delilah"--his clash with Oomphale's guards near the end ofthe picture is very badly done and the climactic battle between theforces of the two brothers is handled extremely poorly. There were morethan enough extras to show a good battle scene, but for some reason thefilmmakers focus mainly on close-ups or two-shots of a few individualsfighting each other, which makes no sense at all, and the battleconsists mostly of a lot of guys running around raising dust and somechariots racing around, and that's pretty much it. Time apparentlyreally does play tricks with your memory; I recalled this picture ashaving much more action in it than it really did, but other thanReeves' fight with Primo Carnera, pretty much nothing happens in thefirst half of the film, and the action that does occur in the secondhalf is mostly perfunctory and, as noted, not very well done.Still, Reeves is impressive to look at and does have a certainpresence, you can't take your eyes of Sylva Koscina, the servant girlsare a treat, the photography is nice for the most part and some of thesets are impressive. The dubbing is, of course, atrocious, but italways is in these pictures, so that's not news. You could do worsethan rent this once. It's just really not worth seeing twice.

ma-cortes (2012-05-18 16:55)

Spectacular Greek adventure with the muscle man hero Hercules-Steve Reeves

The movie opens with the musclebound mythical Hercules ( Steve Reeves), his recent wife Iole ( Sylva Koscina), and the young Ulysses(Gabriel Antonini) setting off for the city of Thebes , continuing theend of the quest for the Golden Fleece (depicted in the former picture, Hercules , that was essentially a recounting of the tale of Jason andthe Argonauts). Their trip is interrupted when Hercules must do battlewith the giant Anteus (Primo Carnera), whose strength seems to exceedhis own until he realizes that Anteus is the son of the earth goddess,Gea, and can't be defeated on land. On their arrival in Thebes, thetrio discovers that the kingdom is in the midst of civil war , Oedipus(Cesare Fantoni), the blind old king, is dying, and his two sons,Polynices (Mimmo Palmara) and Eteocles (Sergio Fantoni), areconfronting for the throne and threatening to destroy each other andthe populace. Hercules must leave Iole in the hands of one side inorder to try and settle the dispute between the two would-be kings.While en route between the two armed camps, however, he is put underthe spell of Omphale (Sylvia Lopez), the Queen of Lydia .Herculesdrinks from a magic spring and lost his records , then the Queen castsout his memory , is seduced and tangles him as a lover , in additionUlysses in tow pretending to be his deaf-mute servant. Ulysses mustfigure out how to keep himself alive, restore Hercules' record, getthem both out of Omphale's grasp before she tires of amnesiac Herculesand has him killed , and get them both back to Thebes before thekingdom is burned to the ground. His solution arrives in the form ofhis father, Laertes ( Andrea Fantasia ), and Hercules' companions asArgo (Aldo Fiorelli) the shipbuilder and the Argonauts from his voyagefor the Golden Fleece. They all escape Omphale's clutches and arrive atThebes where the political tensions raise as war has broken out betweenthe Edipo's sons and their armies , furthermore his new spouse findsherself in mortal risk . In a breathtaking denouement, Hercules bringshis chariot into the middle of the thunderous fighting , knocking downassault towers and sweeping cavalry before him to halt the battle.This mythological movie is plenty of adventures , emotions, thrills ,atmospheric settings and colorful scenarios well photographed by themaestro Mario Bava . The plot this time is drawn from the legendssurrounding the royal house of Thebes, which are most familiar toaudiences through the Theban plays of Sophocles as Aedipus at Coloniaand Seven against Thebes by Aeschylus . It is widely considered to beone of the top 10 greatest Peplum films of all time. This great filmwill surely attract a whole new generation of classic movie fans. Andfor seasoned cinematic connoseuirs, Hercules Unchained (1959) willrekindle an era of film making at its best. This is Steve Reeves'second and last film portrayal of Hercules is, in certain ways, betterthan his first . For others who simply enjoy watching timeless pieceswith icons such as Steve Reeves. The corpulent Steve Reeves was a hunkman who made lots of roman epic films also called ¨Musclemen movies¨.Luck's Reeves changed when Italian director Pietro Francisci persuadedhim to go overseas to star ¨Hercules¨ and sequel ¨Hercules and queen ofLydia also titled Hercules unchained ¨ that served as the prototypes ofall cloak-and-sandal movies to come and both of them became a surpriseUS hit smash . Later on, he followed with ¨Goliath and the Barbarians,The giant of Marathon, The Trojan horse, The son of Spartacus and TheAvenger¨ among them . Steve was an American bouncing who emigratedItaly and created a true star-system based on pumped-up heroes. Hepaved the way for other actors to seek their fame and fortune in Italyplaying bouncing adventurers . Other stars by the time on this type ofmovies are Mark Forest, Gordon Mitchell, Dan Vadis, Brad Harris and'Gordon Scott' who made him more important competence. Nobody,nevertheless, topped Steve in popularity . Rating : Good , highrecommended for Peplum fans

Steve-Reeves (2012-05-16 08:53)

What do/ can you say?

This movie is so great!Everything in this movie is perfect! The epic scope, humor, music, acting,heroes, locations, villains, pretty as I said, everything about this movieis perfect!

classicsoncall (2012-05-15 19:46)

"Anyway, I like the idea of being a king. By the way, what's my name?"

I remember watching "Hercules Unchained" back in the day, but for thelife of me, my viewing of the film today brought back not one memory ofit. For certain though, with Steve Reeves generally acknowledged as thebest of the movie strongmen to portray the Greek demi-god, all the restare pretty lame by comparison. But even here, the movie takes a quickdown hill turn from the original "Hercules", though it does offer a funtime if you're not in the mood for real Greek mythology. Really, howserious can you get about a character who's name sounds like crayon,even if he is a colorful sort.In the story, Herc and his sidekick Ulysses (Gabriele Antonini) attemptto mitigate a feud between two brothers who both want to be the king ofThebes. Following a wrestling match with former world champ PrimoCarnera, Hercules has the misfortune of drinking from the 'waters offorgetfulness'. Falling into a daze, he and Ulysses are captured by thesoldiers of Queen Omphale (Sylvia Lopez), who promptly realizes thathe's the man of her dreams, and maybe even a candidate for the oldtrophy cave. Omphale plays it up for all the leggy cheesecake gloryit's worth, giving new meaning to 'over the top'. For his part, Ulyssesdecides to play the dumb and dumber routine until he can snap Herc outof his stupor.Watch closely the second time Hercules takes up Ulysses' challenge tobend the iron torch stand in an attempt to remember who he is. Hesuccessfully does so, and then unbends it just as easily, leaving aslight curve in the stem. However when he returns the stand to it'soriginal location, the stand is perfectly straight.Before it's all over, brothers Eteocles and Polinices do each other infollowing a chariot battle and hand to hand combat with swords.Hercules prevails in a battle against weirdly diamond striped tigers,reuniting with long suffering (20 days to be exact) wife Iole (SylvaKoscina). Koscina, looking gorgeous, manages to maintain her dignitythroughout, which is saying a lot, as every other woman in the film wascast for their eye candy appeal.Don't take my comments as a put down of the movie, as I'm trying togive my review the same goofy flavor as the film. That means havingsome fun with an early offering from a genre that generated nearly twohundred movies following the first two Steve Reeves epics. If you can'tdo that, at least try a glass of some Grecian spring water.

KOknockout920 (2012-05-12 04:08)

I think I'll fall on my spear. He he.

The sequel to the Steeve Reeves version of Hercules, Hercules Unchainedstarts where its prequel left off. Hercules, Ulyses, and his new wife,Iole, go on some mission to settle a dispute between two brothers whowants to rule Thebes. However, on the way, Hercules drinks the socalled " Waters of Forgetfullness" and forgets who he is and is seducedby this queen,and she falls in love with Hercules. However, Ulyseshelps Herc regain his memory and escapes the island where the queensubsides in (by the way, the queen commits suicide, but anyway).Meanwhile, Iole, Herc's wife, gets captured by one of the brothers andthreatens to kill her. Hercules and his group finally save Iole in abattle to the death by both of the brother's sides. In the end, bothbrothers die, Herc is reunited with his wife, and they live happilyever after.Well not exactly, but they lived ever after.This is the second and hopefully, I think, last sequel to the Herculesseries. The movie felt like an eternity. It took so long for Herc tofinally get off that island! In fact, Herc was on that island for 40minutes, long for an 1 1/2 hour movie. The song. Oh god that was awful.And one last thing. It was boring. There wasn't much action, and whenthere was action, it didn't last long, and it was fake.Thank god MST3Kwas there to make it enjoyable! I want to thank all of the people whomade this B- bomb possible. Steve Reeves, the Herc. The other castmembers. Pietro Franscisi, the director. Mitchell Parish, the personwho wrote that dreaded song. And the two producers, Feruccio DeMartiono and Bruno Vailati. Thank you all! P.S. If you're thinking ofmaking another sequel, heres a tip. Don't!

Dave from Ottawa (2012-05-11 14:53)

Irresistible cheese from the swords and sandals period.

The success of Ben Hur led to a whole cycle of Italo knock-offs overthe next few years. Steve Reeves was the most famous body builder ofthe early sixties, and became the most recognizable star of this genre,and also a huge gay icon. He certainly looked Herculean, and despitehis acting inexperience, Steve handled his sword and chariot actionscenes with panache, while projecting a certain heroic grit. BeautifulSylva Koscina provided the love interest and most of the acting chops,and the supporting actors handled the dialogue (most of it expository),as Steve mostly stood around looking impressively pumped up. SylvaKoscina worked hard to give everything a veneer of credibility andstyle, and winds up successfully maintaining her dignity and actingstature amidst the general beefcake nonsense, but what made theproceedings entertaining was exactly what she was working to riseabove. The interiors look cheap and stagebound, and some of the 'epic'battles appeared to have no more than about six people in the scene.The wooden dialogue is given a rubbery English-dubbed-into-Englishlook, as supporting actors did their lines in Italian and these wereover-dubbed into English, while Steve and Sylva worked in English butwithout synched sound. The result is a D-list action romance with some well-choreographedstuntwork amidst the posturing and flexing. Former boxing star PrimoCarnera even has a beefcake role and still looked pretty impressivehimself, then in his sixties. Enjoyable as camp.

bkoganbing (2012-05-08 20:30)

Omphale's Trophy Room

The sequel to the original Hercules film has Steve Reeves just tryingto get back home to Sylva Koscina and settle down and raise littlemuscle dudes. But he gets a mission from old King Oedipus living at theedge of the underworld. His two sons are not living up to what was areally crazy power sharing scheme whereby they would alternate themonarchy of Thebes for year intervals. The first one's year is up andhe doesn't want to give up his royal prerogatives. The other one hashired a mercenary army and is threatening civil war.While Hercules is trying to mediate the conflict he gets to drinkingfrom the waters of forgetfulness and wakes up in the palace of QueenOmphale played by a fetching Sylvia Lopez. This woman with the help ofsome embalmers trained in Egypt is collecting a beautiful lifelikestatuary and after some servicing by Hercules, she wants to add him toher trophy room.This second Hercules film that starred Steve Reeves is a cut above mostof the peplums out there. It even has an appearance by formerheavyweight champion Primo Carnera who towers over Reeves playing thegiant Anteas.Nice stuff for the Saturday matinée trade.

MARIO GAUCI (2012-05-08 07:52)

HERCULES UNCHAINED (Pietro Francisci, 1959) **1/2

The sequel to HERCULES (1958) is even less enthusing but remains,nonetheless, an adequate example of the peplum genre.Sylva Koscina’s role of Iole, Hercules’ love interest, is diminishedhere since the most prominent female figure on display emerges to bethe femme fatale-ish Queen of Lidia Omphale (the film’s original title,incidentally, translates to HERCULES AND THE QUEEN OF LIDIA) – thelatter is played by another red-headed beauty Sylvia Lopez, who died ofleukemia not long after the film’s release! Needless to say, themuscle-bound hero (Steve Reeves) falls under her spell after havingconveniently drunk from a spring that renders him an amnesiac (thoughnot before he’s been engaged in an irrelevant wrestling bout withex-heavyweight champion Primo Carnera as an irascible giant!); hisfriend Ulysses, however, is on hand to watch over him (ostensibly inthe function of Hercules’ deaf-mute slave). Meanwhile, back home inThebes, two brothers fight it out over the throne – with Iole at themercy of a cackling maniac (an over-the-top Sergio Fantoni)... By the way, both of these Hercules films featured atmosphericcinematography by Mario Bava - who would himself direct one of thebetter adventures revolving around this mythical figure, HERCULES INTHE HAUNTED WORLD (1961) starring Reg Park. As for Francisci, he workedmost often in this genre: from ATTILA (1954; co-starring Anthony Quinnand Sophia Loren) – which is overdue for a reappraisal and has,incidentally, just been announced as an upcoming DVD release fromLionsgate! – to the low-brow HERCULES, SAMSON AND ULYSSES (1963; withKirk Morris now as Hercules) and SINBAD AND THE CALIPH OF BAGHDAD(1973; his last film and which I recall watching eons ago on ItalianTV).

Hitchcoc (2012-05-06 10:10)

More of the Same: Looks a Little Better

The quality of the film was much better than many of these that I'veseen. Here are some observations. For some reason, every character isnamed after a Greek or Roman god. Ulysses is a dork. How could he havefought those battles with Hercules. During the brain freeze that takesup about half the movie, Hercules seems to be having a good time. Whatexactly caused the brain freeze? Did I miss something. There are a tonof fights. Armies attacking one man and losing, of course. Hercules istempted but has an excuse in that he doesn't know who he is. As usual,there is an evil queen. Are there any of these movies that don't havean evil queen. I never quite got the whole thing with the two brothersand their fathers and the big conflict, other than they wanted to keepwhat they had. I must admit, I just couldn't get into it. I've hadenough Hercules for a while.

RichieLovesGodHisFather (2012-05-06 05:40)

God's 1st Commandment

When I was growing up in the 60's I used to go matinées and watchHercules and even the later TV series with Kevin Sorbo as Hercules.Iread that Hercules is the son of Zeus and as the years passed into mylater 40's I finally grew to accept there is only one God.The one whocounts and God made it clear in His 1st Commandment Thou Shalt Not HaveNo Other gods Before Me.Zeus is a (false god) I used to think theHercules films and TV show and even the cartoon were great,But afterGod wrote His Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai which I call The CapitolOf God's World was all I needed to know God is the only God,all othergods and goddesses are false and they go against God's 1stCommandment.So it was written by My Father.

Space_Mafune (2012-04-30 21:05)

Fun Sequel...

but not at the level of the original 1958 film also starring Steve Reeves inthe lead role.Still this does deliver some good thrills such as Hercules battling thegiant Antaeus (Primo Carnera), trying to escape the influence of QueenOmphale (Sylvia Lopez who I feel was truly bewitching in the role), tanglingwith deadly tigers and finally trying to rescue his lovely bride Iole (SylvaKoscina) from the crazed Eteocles all while trying to stop his homeland ofThebes from descending into war.The middle portion of the film which has Hercules under the spell of QueenOmphale once his memory has been wiped away by the waters of forgetfulnessis a bit slow but is still fun...fun adventure not to be taken too seriouslyis how I'd describe this one.

ebiros2 (2012-04-30 14:33)

Steve Reeves is the best Hercules

These movies starring Steve Reeves wouldn't have worked if it weren'tfor his presence.This is one of less spectacular out of all the movies Steve Reeves havestarred in. But Steve Reeves still looks good as Hercules, and he's thebest actor to play this role in my opinion. Production is lavish withbeautiful casts, and studio settings. It's probably best not to thinktoo hard about the whys and why nots of the story, as the movie is moreabout physical beauty of the casts that are involved. In this regard,this is one of the best movie ever created. People back then seems tobe more gorgeous than people in the movies today. Watch this movie for its stunningly beautiful casts. You will not bedisappointed.

mhrabovsky1-1 (2012-04-25 14:34)

Hercules Unchained

In 1959 producer Joseph E. Levine released in the United States thehyped up cheaply made Italian muscle "epic" "Hercules" starring astruggling bodybuilder actor with a physique that would make a Greekgod jealous, Steve Reeves. After a big publicity campaign the filmbecame a box office smash and started a whole new Hollywood genre, theItalian "sword and sandal" so called movies. After the success of"Hercules" Levine ordered up another installment, this one called"Hercules Unchained" and it too was a smash. Reeves as Hercules ismarried happily to a lovely Italian lady in Greece, but upon returningto his homeland he finds two brothers are in a blood feud for controlof Thebes. Reeves to the rescue! Reeves is entrusted with taking apeace treaty pact to one of the brothers to settle the feud but drinkswater from the fountain of "forgetfullness" and is soon captured andtaken to an island and made a sex slave to the queen Omphale, a womanwho cant get enough loving out of a slew of ex greeks.....in short, sheloves em and slays em in equal amounts. She meets her match in Herculesand he escapes and sails back to Thebes just in time as the twobrothers kill themselves foolishly trying to take over the throne. Lotsof skin, bulging muscles and lovely Italian ladies in skimpy costumes.That combination became the formula for the next several years asItalian producers churned out a ton of muscleman "epics" with the likesof Gordon Scott, Mark Forrest, Ed Fury, Reg Park, Richard Harrison. Thefilms were mostly the same; evil rulers, mob scenes, sword fights,skimpily clad women, musclebulging heroes doing feats of strength withhorses, elephants and picking up 5 lb paper mache rocks and throwingthem at evil rulers armies. If you watch these films not expecting tosee Charlton Heston or Kirk Douglas you will have a lot of fun. Reeveswas by far the best actor in these films despite shoestring budgets andhigh school scripts. Reeves made a slew of Hercules, Goliath, pirates,and mystical character films before he retired for good in the late60s...word was he turned down the original James Bond role in "Dr. No"that went to Sean Connery....go figure!

(2012-04-24 20:57)

This is a movie for men!

Hercules becomes amnesiac after drinking from the waters of Lethe. Foryears, the beautiful queen Omphale has been abducting warrior men whobecome amnesiacs off to her exotic paradise island where they givethemselves up to sexual pleasures until the day she tires of them.That's the day they die, only to be immortalized as statuary in hergarden of conquests. Hercules soon finds himself abducted and like allthe others he is her completely willing slave.But this time her soldiers bring back Hercules' traveling companionUlysses, who has saved his life by pretending to be the hero'sdeaf-mute body servant. Ulysses continues in that role during Hercules'captivity and by keeping Hercules from drinking more of the magicalwater, restores his memory.'I've been tricked by the gods.' is his summation of the situation.After all, he had been on an important mission of state with his wifethe virtual hostage of a madman when all this happened. Of course hegets away, the first of Ompahle's slaves to escape her net. Shestatue-tizes herself over the lose and the movie moves on to itsconclusion.All Sons of Hercules movies have this same plot: Hercules falls underthe sway of a powerful, beautiful and evil woman but comes to hissenses and saves the day. At its core it is about sex and the taboopredilection of men to seek this enslavement. This plot is notfashionable any more. Too much sexual freedom in modern society hasrobbed it of its power. But it had power (over men) in the sixties, andthis film exploited it expertly.

Steven J. Juon (2012-04-24 09:12)

Hercules: Uninteresting

Even as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 send-up, this one falls flat ifyou watch it more than once. The riffing of Joel and the bots is stillentertaining, but it can't disguise the fact this film is pretty thinon usable plot and relies mostly on Steve Reeves rugged looks tosustain itself. Think Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder" and you'll seewhat I mean. As painful as this movie is with their jokes, it would becompletely intolerable without them. From cheesy costumes to badlydubbed dialogue to acting even high school drama teachers would turntheir noses up at, this movie is like a 1970's kung-fu flick minus thesaving grace of people getting their butts kicked. In fact for aso-called Hercules movie, it's long on bad dialogue and short on goodaction. If you're going to watch something called Hercules you'dactually be better off seeing the animated Disney film.

InzyWimzy (2012-04-23 18:47)

Herc's Pecs-a-Popping!

Big, bronzed Steve Reeves is Hercules, Greek stupor hero who burns 50 braincells per second. I guess these epics were big during the 50's, butwatching them now is like seeing a documentary with nitrous. There'ssupposed to be a story, but the makers felt it better to emphasize actionrather than plot.It doesn't work and you get a lot of choreographed fight scenes. WatchHerchurl chocolate bunnies. Plenty of Greek guys in skirts. Must've been thefad back then. I thought Hercster could've made the movie a lot better bysnapping Ulysses in half. Plus, he has an affair and still keeps his hottybride Iole. The ending is a blockbuster fight scene with lots of peopleflying, horses dying, and audiences crying.At least Steve Reeves is less annoying than Miles O' Keefe.