After twelve arduous tasks and the loss of his entire family, Hercules, the tormented son of Zeus, walks the earth in suffering. He has turned his back on the gods, a mercenary for hire, who finds solace in battle. Hired by the King of Thrace to train his men in the art of war, Hercules and his band of mercenaries soon come face-to-face with a tyrannical warlord. Brett Ratner's Hercules is a poorly directed, uninteresting narrative that completely wastes Dwayne Johnson's charasmatic appeal. I've always believed Dwayne Johnson is an underrated actor with great charisma and Hercules is the latest example of a film that completely wastes his talents. In this film, Hercules is an incredibly one-dimensional character who really is given nothing to do but flex his muscles and participate in team-building war crys. Much of this blame falls on the script, which for lack of a better word, is putrid, in its conventional storytelling, poor dialogue, and predictable narrative twists. Brett Ratner further reminds the world he is a terrible action director, using far too much over-edited garbage in the action scenes that disorient more than thrill. In a film like this choreography is very important, with Hercules having some really uninteresting fight sequences that are further castrated by its PG-13 rating. It is quite frankly beyond me why Ratner was chosen for this revisionist, grounded re-telling of the Hercules tale, being completely unable to deliver anything but absurd and derivative action and storytelling. With Ratner at the helm, Hercules could have been more fun if they fully embraced the semi-truck throwing, full-throttle version of the legend, saving the viewer from a bland, out-matched director trying to tell a story in a grounded way.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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