As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in Greek mythology; while everyone around me always seemed to be checking out teen dramas or vampires or whatever from the school libraries we were forced to use, I always checked out nonfiction books on Greek mythology, or translations of fantastic tales like the Illiad or Jason's Golden Fleece. These stories have always filled me with awe, and there is a part of me, admittedly, that still has trouble admitting that these stories are fictional. Indeed, you could say these ancient myths have had a big impact on me. One of my favorite recurring themes in Greek Mythology is that of redemption, and in few other myths is redemption featured more heavily than in that of Hercules.
Hercules was the illegitimate child of Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon of gods. He was hated and cursed by Zeus's wife Hera, doomed in all his wanderings to be mired by darkness and pain. But Hercules was a man of strong constitution, and a man who valued a challenge. After being cursed by Hera and murdering his family, he was condemned a ruthless killer, but he redeemed himself through completing trials given to him by his father, Zeus. Like most of these Greek stories, the hero we follow is one with many tragic flaws, but a man of good intentions. A man of perseverance, and the will to make a change for the better; a man who believes in the concept of redemption, and is strong enough to pursue it.
I've been aware of the live action Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series for quite some time, and when I spotted the Season 1 DVD box set on the ground in my friend's apartment, I knew I was destined to watch it. I checked the back of the box for a synopsis, and it said that the first few discs included contained five movies as part of the Hercules ACTION PACK. I looked it up on the internet, and apparently the ACTION PACK was a promotional term for a group of five made-for-television movies which actually preceded the TV series. To think, five movies about my favorite Greek hero, called the ACTION PACK. Anyone who has read my Yor, the Hunter from the Future review knows I love a good action flick with some beef cake (and boy does this movie have beef cake). So, as a fan of the concept and of the protagonist, it seemed like an obvious choice to dive right in.
I was so naive.
The first of the films is Hercules and the Amazon Women. This movie is the "action packed" account of Hercules being captured by brutal Amazonian women and over what feels like several hours, coming to terms with his feminine side and how sometimes boys cry too. I'm not going to guide you through this movie scene-by-scene making wisecracks like a written Mystery Science Theater, which is what I did with my review of Yor, the Hunter from the Future. The reason it worked for that movie adequately was that its script had events and happenings; in Hercules and the Amazon Women, there are no events, and there are no happenings. I swear on Steven Seagal's career as a policeman that if I gave you an in depth play-by-play of this movie, your brain would beat the shit out of the inside of your skull trying to escape. As a matter of fact, when I finished this movie, if it wasn't for the fact that I could feel I had sustained significant brain damage, it would have been hard to discern if I had even seen a movie at all. I'll sum up the plot of this movie in one, long paragraph, because I really just want to get the mess out of the way. There's obviously going to be some spoilers (as if anybody cares).
Okay, so Hercules's best friend is getting married. His mom washes his feet, and the seeds of the contrived feminist . Hercules and his mother visit his friend, they eat some soup, his friend's fiancee is a poor cook. A man signals for Hercules out the window, they go to meet him at the door, and he says his village needs their help. He follows them back to their village, and is told that a beast comes from across the river and attacks their village regularly. Hercules and his friend go to investigate, are attacked by Amazon women, the friend dies, Hercules cries and is captured, and is brought shirtless and glistening through the Amazon village. The leader of the Amazon women has a long discussion with Hercules that last like 45 minutes about how he is from an ignorant sexist culture, and instead of being a clever commentary on our own terribly sexist culture, it forgoes all that kind of subtle satire to make a movie entirely based on how the most broad and childish sexist stereotypes are wrong (I'll expand on that a bit later, believe me). Anyway, we find out the Amazons are the beasts, and the attack is that they come to the male village across the river and have sex for the purpose of procreation. The men counteract this by being nice and sitting the Amazon's down to tea, serenading them with songs, and generally just being pussies. For a second things go bad again when Hera takes control of the Amazon queen, but then everything is okay when Hercules travels back in time and fixes everything by spreading the message of feminism.
So in case anybody forgot, this movie was the first in a promotional package of movies called the ACTION PACK, and if my synopsis didn't outline it well enough for you, this movie has no action. In fact, it seems the biggest problem with this movie is that it's probably the most boring piece of shit I've ever forced myself to sit through. The entire focus of this movie lies not with the amazing adventures of a warrior, or the rich mythological base upon which it was constructed, but with elementary feminist messages so transparent and obvious I wonder why this movie wasn't called "Hercules and the Women Who Could Wear Pants." I have nothing against feminism, but if you're going to make it the focus of a Hercules film, you had better make it a complex and unique enough message to justify the fact that he's not bashing skulls through the whole movie.
We learn through many poorly setup and completely ridiculous flashbacks that Hercules has been raised since he was a boy to believe that feelings are bad, and that only women have them - this is a part of the original Hercules narrative I must have missed. In fact, in the old Hercules stories, his emotions (especially his anger) usually factored pretty heavily in how he handled things. It's as if somebody warped a character who has existed for millennia just to help convey a boneheaded "water-is-wet, girls-can-play-kickball-too," message. I have no idea who the target audience of this film is supposed to be. It's advertised as a crazy mythological bloodbath, but what takes place is hours of awkward dialogue, beating the most obvious message of equal rights for women into the viewer.
You know what? I know who this movie is for. It's for fucking idiots. This movie is for fucking idiots. Only a fucking idiot would watch this movie and feel it is justified in its existence. Only a fucking idiot would not be offended by how stupid this script thinks you are. Every little thing in this movie is spelled out for you in the most wordy and awkward means available, breaking the golden rule of film: show, don't tell. Schoolhouse Rock had more subtlety than this. Sitting through this movie is like watching a public service announcement.
Of course, there's a romance subplot in there, in which Hercules falls madly in love with the queen of the Amazons, she falls in love with him, and the audience is left wondering if there was a deleted scene somewhere. For a movie that likes to spell everything out for its audience, it doesn't spend a lot of time explaining why these two people would enjoy spending time together, or why Hercules goes from being a single Conan the Barbarian type he was at the beginning to being a hopeless romantic by the end of the movie.
Look, if you ever find yourself alone in a room with a a television, a DVD player, and a copy of this movie, snap the disc in half and cut your jugular.
...
Yes, I'm going to watch and review the other four movies in the series.
Hercules was the illegitimate child of Zeus, ruler of the Greek pantheon of gods. He was hated and cursed by Zeus's wife Hera, doomed in all his wanderings to be mired by darkness and pain. But Hercules was a man of strong constitution, and a man who valued a challenge. After being cursed by Hera and murdering his family, he was condemned a ruthless killer, but he redeemed himself through completing trials given to him by his father, Zeus. Like most of these Greek stories, the hero we follow is one with many tragic flaws, but a man of good intentions. A man of perseverance, and the will to make a change for the better; a man who believes in the concept of redemption, and is strong enough to pursue it.
I've been aware of the live action Hercules: The Legendary Journeys television series for quite some time, and when I spotted the Season 1 DVD box set on the ground in my friend's apartment, I knew I was destined to watch it. I checked the back of the box for a synopsis, and it said that the first few discs included contained five movies as part of the Hercules ACTION PACK. I looked it up on the internet, and apparently the ACTION PACK was a promotional term for a group of five made-for-television movies which actually preceded the TV series. To think, five movies about my favorite Greek hero, called the ACTION PACK. Anyone who has read my Yor, the Hunter from the Future review knows I love a good action flick with some beef cake (and boy does this movie have beef cake). So, as a fan of the concept and of the protagonist, it seemed like an obvious choice to dive right in.
I was so naive.
The first of the films is Hercules and the Amazon Women. This movie is the "action packed" account of Hercules being captured by brutal Amazonian women and over what feels like several hours, coming to terms with his feminine side and how sometimes boys cry too. I'm not going to guide you through this movie scene-by-scene making wisecracks like a written Mystery Science Theater, which is what I did with my review of Yor, the Hunter from the Future. The reason it worked for that movie adequately was that its script had events and happenings; in Hercules and the Amazon Women, there are no events, and there are no happenings. I swear on Steven Seagal's career as a policeman that if I gave you an in depth play-by-play of this movie, your brain would beat the shit out of the inside of your skull trying to escape. As a matter of fact, when I finished this movie, if it wasn't for the fact that I could feel I had sustained significant brain damage, it would have been hard to discern if I had even seen a movie at all. I'll sum up the plot of this movie in one, long paragraph, because I really just want to get the mess out of the way. There's obviously going to be some spoilers (as if anybody cares).
Okay, so Hercules's best friend is getting married. His mom washes his feet, and the seeds of the contrived feminist . Hercules and his mother visit his friend, they eat some soup, his friend's fiancee is a poor cook. A man signals for Hercules out the window, they go to meet him at the door, and he says his village needs their help. He follows them back to their village, and is told that a beast comes from across the river and attacks their village regularly. Hercules and his friend go to investigate, are attacked by Amazon women, the friend dies, Hercules cries and is captured, and is brought shirtless and glistening through the Amazon village. The leader of the Amazon women has a long discussion with Hercules that last like 45 minutes about how he is from an ignorant sexist culture, and instead of being a clever commentary on our own terribly sexist culture, it forgoes all that kind of subtle satire to make a movie entirely based on how the most broad and childish sexist stereotypes are wrong (I'll expand on that a bit later, believe me). Anyway, we find out the Amazons are the beasts, and the attack is that they come to the male village across the river and have sex for the purpose of procreation. The men counteract this by being nice and sitting the Amazon's down to tea, serenading them with songs, and generally just being pussies. For a second things go bad again when Hera takes control of the Amazon queen, but then everything is okay when Hercules travels back in time and fixes everything by spreading the message of feminism.
So in case anybody forgot, this movie was the first in a promotional package of movies called the ACTION PACK, and if my synopsis didn't outline it well enough for you, this movie has no action. In fact, it seems the biggest problem with this movie is that it's probably the most boring piece of shit I've ever forced myself to sit through. The entire focus of this movie lies not with the amazing adventures of a warrior, or the rich mythological base upon which it was constructed, but with elementary feminist messages so transparent and obvious I wonder why this movie wasn't called "Hercules and the Women Who Could Wear Pants." I have nothing against feminism, but if you're going to make it the focus of a Hercules film, you had better make it a complex and unique enough message to justify the fact that he's not bashing skulls through the whole movie.
We learn through many poorly setup and completely ridiculous flashbacks that Hercules has been raised since he was a boy to believe that feelings are bad, and that only women have them - this is a part of the original Hercules narrative I must have missed. In fact, in the old Hercules stories, his emotions (especially his anger) usually factored pretty heavily in how he handled things. It's as if somebody warped a character who has existed for millennia just to help convey a boneheaded "water-is-wet, girls-can-play-kickball-too," message. I have no idea who the target audience of this film is supposed to be. It's advertised as a crazy mythological bloodbath, but what takes place is hours of awkward dialogue, beating the most obvious message of equal rights for women into the viewer.
You know what? I know who this movie is for. It's for fucking idiots. This movie is for fucking idiots. Only a fucking idiot would watch this movie and feel it is justified in its existence. Only a fucking idiot would not be offended by how stupid this script thinks you are. Every little thing in this movie is spelled out for you in the most wordy and awkward means available, breaking the golden rule of film: show, don't tell. Schoolhouse Rock had more subtlety than this. Sitting through this movie is like watching a public service announcement.
Of course, there's a romance subplot in there, in which Hercules falls madly in love with the queen of the Amazons, she falls in love with him, and the audience is left wondering if there was a deleted scene somewhere. For a movie that likes to spell everything out for its audience, it doesn't spend a lot of time explaining why these two people would enjoy spending time together, or why Hercules goes from being a single Conan the Barbarian type he was at the beginning to being a hopeless romantic by the end of the movie.
Look, if you ever find yourself alone in a room with a a television, a DVD player, and a copy of this movie, snap the disc in half and cut your jugular.
...
Yes, I'm going to watch and review the other four movies in the series.
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