Here's the trailer for Hercules, the new movie directed by Brett Ratner that opens in theaters today:
This movie has a secret. Its secret is revealed in the first five minutes of the movie, but it's nowhere in the trailer. I don't think I can really talk about the movie without revealing this secret. So for those of you who want to see Hercules with all its secrets unrevealed, here's a non-spoiler review of the film: It's really boring and it's probably not worth your time. I'm not going to ruin anything else about the movie in this review, but I will be talking about Hercules's secret starting in the next paragraph. You've been warned.
Are you ready? OK. All those giant monsters Hercules is fighting in the trailer? They're not really in the movie. They exist in a fantasy sequence in the first two minutes of Hercules, when a young storyteller is regaling some soldiers with an account of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. But the Hercules in Hercules is a legend, not a demigod. He's a normal (but incredibly strong) human man who allows his legend to be spread so he can intimidate his foes and earn a better living as a mercenary. So this is the Hercules story with all the larger-than-life mythology and magic stripped out. That is to say, it's a Hercules story that takes out all the interesting and exciting parts of the Hercules story. If Hercules had the guts to make its main character a total con man, that would at least be kind of interesting, but this Hercules is still an impossibly gifted warrior who can throw men around like they're action figures and decimate enemy combatants using just his fists. So he's still super, just...not quite as super? What the hell's the point of that?
Does it help that Hercules stars The Rock in the title role? Well, kind of. I mean, The Rock makes any movie better, and I love his thick beard, his lion-head hoodie, and his shaggy hair in this film; he looks like he's starring in a beefed-up stoner comedy. But The Rock doesn't get to utilize his secret weapon—his self-effacing sense of humor—anywhere in the movie, and so he's just doing rote 300 rip-off main character tricks: Punching soldiers, giving inspirational speeches about what it means to be a man, and looking cool in slow motion. Hell, even Ian McShane, as the soothsayer sidekick of Hercules's team of warriors, is bad comic relief and not especially interesting. The rest of Hercules's entourage is forgettable: You've got the highly competent female archer with boob-hugging armor and a leather miniskirt, the crazy one, and the roguish smart-aleck. Together, they agree to help a king defeat an invading army, and then the requisite plot twists happen.
And so here we are, with a dull movie about a magic-free version of the Hercules myth that still treats Hercules like a typical action hero. I've already mentioned that Brett Ratner is the director, so you know there's nothing visually interesting about Hercules. (Avoid the pointless 3D and even more pointless IMAX format.) It's packed with lame dialogue about how "the world needs a hero" and "the people need a hero" and also the following exchange, which I swear is in every bad action movie ever:
ONE DOUCHEBAG: You certainly are a hard man to find!
OTHER DOUCHEBAG: Maybe I don't want to be found.
Aside from a couple pretty neat Rock action moments at the very end of the movie, there's just nothing worth recommending about this damn thing. Don't waste your time. Just spend 98 minutes imagining the fun we could've had with a big-budget tongue-in-cheek movie starring The Rock as a demigod cleaning out stables by changing the course of rivers, instead.
