Dwayne The Rock Johnson stars as the demigod Hercules. The son of Zeus has completed his 12 labors and is now, essentially, a bodyguard for hire. He and his other muscular, battle-ready comrades are called by the Thracian king, played by John Hurt, to fight a group of rebels that are attacking the city.
Perhaps the main reason this movie isn't generating any buzz is because it's directed by Brett Ratner. If you're unfamiliar with that name, let me briefly inform you. He's probably one of the most hated directors working today. Not because he consistently churns out bad movie after bad movie, but rather for his offscreen reputation which I'm not going to delve into at all. I personally think that judging a director by his actions rather than the movies he produces is the exact opposite of what a movie reviewer should do. I said in my Maleficent review that I don't care for Angelina Jolie as a person, but I praised her performance as the highlight of the film. And that is the case here. Brett Ratner might be a jerk in real life but he knows how to shoot action.
I was expecting this film to be a complete Zach Snyder, Matrix/300-esque ripoff that we've seen time and time again recently with an overabundance of CGI and slow-motion fight scenes. To my great surprise, no! The fight scenes were well choreographed, the slow-motion was used very sparingly and the majority of the CGI was used on the few animals and creatures seen in the trailer. It was actually rather refreshing to see on screen.
I am a huge fan of Dwayne The Rock Johnson. He's the modern action star of my generation and probably the coolest celebrity alive. While he might not be the greatest actor, he does his job well enough as Hercules. It's entertaining watching The Rock hit people with a giant stick. Is it just me, but does he look more like Conan the Barbarian than Hercules? While watching this film I couldn't help but find a resemblance between The Rock and an early 1980's era Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The supporting cast is completely expendable. Hercules has a posse of sorts with other warriors and I don't remember a single one of their names. The only one I actually enjoyed was Ian Mcshane. I couldn't be able to tell you if your had a gun pointed at my head, but he had a few good lines and a rather interesting character trait with that being he can see how he is going to die. Which leads to some interesting situations that I enjoyed seeing.
Honestly, I'm not gonna waist much time on this film. It's not terrible, but it's not memorable. It kind of reminded me of G. I. Joe Retaliation in the sense that I completely forgot that I saw a movie ten minutes after leaving the cineplex.
Final Report: The action scenes might be filmed in a more traditional way and The Rock is always fun to watch, but the bottom line is that Hercules is neither as inventive or as fun as it should/could have been. It comes off as both dull and boring, but it's mostly just a waste of time.
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