Review: Hercules

In the beginning, there was darkness. An explosion caused the creation of the universe and the Gods. The smashing of Pandora’s Jar formed the planets from its fragments, including Earth. Oh, and Mount Olympus? Apparently it’s on the moon. No effing joke. We begin there with Hercules (Lou Ferrigno), created by the god Zeus (Claudio Cassinelli) to live as the son of King Augius (Brad Harris). However, whilst still a baby, Hercules’ father is usurped by King Minos (William Berger) and his seductress daughter Princess Arianna (Exploitation favourite Sybil Danning). Left floating down the river, he is eventually found and adopted by a couple where he grows into the muscular bodyguard of Princess Cassiopeia (Ingrid Anderson). When Cassiopeia is kidnapped, Hercules sees it as his mission to rescue her and defeat Minos and Arianna. Along the way he must carry out several tasks, most of which tend to be wrestling with mechanical creatures.

This 1983 flick from writer-director Luigi Cozzi (“Starcrash”, “Paganini Horror”), AKA Lewis Coates, is good for an unintentional laugh. It is also, ultimately, one of the worst films ever made. Produced by schlockmeisters Golan-Globus, it appears to be Cannon Films’ lame-arse, cheapo attempt at cashing in on the success of “Clash of the Titans”. Unfortunately it plays more like a bargain basement blend of “Superman” and “Flash Gordon” by way of a sword-and-sandals epic. The mixture of genres and styles produces a woeful, calamitous, epic failure for us all to point and laugh at (And I don’t think Mr. Cozzi is in on the gag, unfortunately). This, folks, is really something.

We get off to an inauspicious and inexplicable start with an amazingly cheesy and cheap Pino Donaggio (“Don’t Look Now”, “The Howling”, “Blow Out”) score. Things fail to improve with a shocking voice-over narration allegedly from Zeus, but sounding like a mixture of God from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and the opening narration of “The Mysterious Cities of Gold”. There’s nothing wrong with the voice-over artist per se, but it’s just hilariously moronic to have a story about Hercules being presented like the opening scenes of “Superman”. So fragments of a crappy jug created the planets and the solar system? Really? And what in the hell does this have to do with Hercules? And what’s with all the damn lasers? Why are there laser sparks when swords clang? Guys, Roger Corman just called and even he thinks this is a cheap piece of crap. Why is there an hourglass floating through outer space containing the sands of time? I was convinced that this just had to be a joke put on by Golan-Globus. Surely?! When we came across that old cliché of the abandoned baby floating along the river, I thought I wasn’t watching Hercules so much as a version of “The Ten Commandments” produced on a budget of 99c by a filmmaker on an almighty acid trip.

The ineptitude and zero budget hilariousness continues with Hercules (played by Ferrigno, but with his notable mush-mouth dubbed by ‘Standard Deep Voice Hercules Guy’) fighting a bear. This is one of the worst moments in the history of cinema, as real-life documentary footage of a bear is ineptly spliced with Ferrigno rolling around with a guy in a shit suit with Power Ranger sound FX as he lands every mighty punch. I’m not making this up, it’s all documented on film, folks. Meanwhile, if you hated the mechanical owl in “Clash of the Titans” (and who didn’t?), the mechanical giant wasp seen here will have you hanging your head in shame. It’s so poorly rendered it’d look out of place in a 60s “Godzilla” film let alone something like this. Mind you, it’s better than the mechanical dragon which looks like a giant crappy kids toy. I accept and embrace the cheap FX and suits in a “Godzilla” film because they’re meant to be a bit juvenile. This isn’t juvenile, it’s intellectually-challenged. The sets, costumes, and props all look like they’ve been stolen from a bad 70s softcore porno like “2069: A Sex Odyssey”. Yes, I’ve seen it. An Atari game has better graphics than this dung. Some of the film’s plot elements really need to be seen to be believed. Let me get this straight; In order to get to the Gates of Hell, you have to cross a poorly animated rainbow bridge? Who’s the bridge keeper, one of the Care Bears? I always knew those little bastards were evil! (Oh, and just wait until you see the lead villain’s sword, it’s ‘flaming’ in more than one sense of the term). And why is a Greek God using terms like ‘science’? I can suspend disbelief with Greek Gods speaking English, but c’mon, that’s just a poor choice of words there. Mind you, this is from a film that suggests that a volcano has ‘inexhaustible energy’. I mean, I barely passed Geology in high school, but that sounds just a little bit factually-challenged to me. If you do check this film out, note that some scenes have green-tinted cinematography and lighting. Sadly, Ferrigno (who looks like ten condoms full of walnuts, to paraphrase Aussie ex-pat TV host Clive James) only wished this was The Hulk.

The film is a complete dud, but it does have two things going for it: Sybil Danning. She’s wondrous to behold as usual, whilst the rest are terrible actors. That says more about them than it does about Danning’s acting talents, though. Strangely enough, she’s the only one not dubbed here. I say strange because I know at least Ferrigno and Efroni at the very least can speak English (in Ferrigno’s case, seriously garbled and muffled). More important to note is that Danning wears another of her patented ‘Holy crap, her titties are gonna pop out of that!’ outfits. Needless to say, it’s very nice scenery. Very nice indeed. And that Lou Ferrigno has some big arse titties too, in fairness.

This is a terrible, terrible film in just about every conceivable way. Therefore I whole-heartedly recommend it! You just have to see this one.

Rating: F