Review: HERCULES (2014)

HERCULES  (ACTION-ADVENTURE) 
1.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Brett Ratner
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, Aksel Hennie, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Reece Ritchie, Joseph Fiennes, Tobias Santelmann, Rebecca Ferguson, Peter Mullan
Rated PG-13 for epic battle sequences, violence, suggestive comments, brief strong language and partial nudity.
86 minutes
Verdict: A few fleeting moments of fun and even the considerable charms of The Rock can do little to elevate this messy, idiotic and occasionally incompetent swords-and-sandals b-movie to something worth its mercifully short running time.
YOU MAY ENJOY HERCULES (2014) IF YOU LIKED:
THE SCORPION KING (2002)
300 (2006)
THE LEGEND OF HERCULES (2014)
TROY (2004)
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006)

Nobody has a right to expect anything more than "dumb fun" from Brett Ratner's new big-budget action flick, HERCULES.  Ratner and his cast and crew themselves don't appear to have any illusions about aspiring beyond that, and yet, that's a harder target to hit than you might think.  But they do their darnedest, taking the Greek legend back to his classical look despite how that may differ from today's typical clean-shaven, dashing heroes; bearded with a lion skin hood and wielding a big-ass club, and then even throwing in a few CGI monsters, fleeting female nudity, vulgar banter and an f-bomb into the Ancient Greece setting for good measure.  So it's really a bummer that HERCULES misses the dumb fun mark by as much as it does.  It's rarely fun, and "dumb" isn't quite the right word for what this is.  HERCULES is stupid.
Former pro-wrestler and now the most charismatic he-man action movie star this side of the 1980s Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson follows in the footsteps of fellow muscle-heads Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno (but with notably more significant acting talent than either of them) as the most memorable of the legendary Greek heroes of myth, Hercules, the strongman said to a demigod, born of a human mother from the seed of Zeus, King of the Gods, and cursed as a bastard son by Zeus' wife, Hera.  They say he carried out the famous Twelve Labors, among them slaying the Hydra, the Erymanthian Boar and the Nemean Lion, and even in repeated passing reference, acquiring the Girdle of Hippolyta (cleaning the Augean stables is pretty much ignored, because nobody wants to see The Rock shoveling horse crap, I guess).  At least, that's what the legends say.  After the deaths of his wife and child, Hercules now fights as a mercenary for gold, alongside a squad of elite warriors willing to kill for the right price, and the King of Thrace, Cotys (John Hurt), has a proposition that will deliver each man their own weight in gold.  To earn their prize, Hercules and his warriors must train a Thracian army for Cotys, an army that fights like Hercules, to help defeat a warlord wreaking havoc on the countryside.
The screenplay is based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars by Steve Moore, adapted by Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos, the latter having substantial experience in writing straight-to-home-video sequels and spin-offs for Disney, which is not surprising at all.  The story is very slight (thankfully, the movie clocks in at a merciful 86 minutes, unlike TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, which ran for eternity), with little in the way of plot and little in the way of character development, but with extra cheese like warriors who stick together because they're family and the "Scumbag Steve" of the group telling an oracle that he should share his "herbs".  Yeesh.  And then there's the repeated theme of the purpose and nature of the myths, as Hercules' nephew (Reece Ritchie) invents fantastic stories about his uncle's exploits, while everyone they encounter must vocally assess the truth of the stories.  It's an utterly useless attempt to give some layering to the story, because while the myth vs. reality themes are repeated regularly throughout the movie, it's merely repetition, with no commitment and no payoff.
There's plenty of action, but it appears that Ratner's ability to orchestrate battle scenes and other such large scale action has not improved since X-MEN: THE LAST STAND.  He sets up large pieces, like marching armies and big set-pieces, but he's entirely incapable of establishing a sense of scope or a sense of any other ongoing action while he focuses on one altercation after another, as if the battles are stopping so that people can fight two at a time.  All the set-up feels like pointless pre-show flash.  He certainly gets his worth for the PG-13 gore quotient though.  This is the kind of movie that reminds you just how far the PG-13 rating can be stretched, or perhaps introduces a new level to which it can be stretched, with plenty of gruesomely decaying severed heads on spikes, substantial blood splatter and bodily mutilation.  It may be stupid and cheesy, but it's not kid-friendly.
The Rock certainly devotes himself to the role, adequately beefed-up to play the such a role and playing it just straight enough, without taking the character too seriously.  Ian McShane, co-starring as a comrade-in-arms to Hercules and an oracle who can read but not necessarily interpret visions of the future, is one of the more fun characters in the mix, while the rest are mostly bland archetypes, like Ingrid Bolso Berdal as Atlanta, a Amazonian warrior woman who dresses like a sex doll but casually proves the misogynistic men around wrong again and again, or Rufus Sewell as Autolycus, the grumpy guy only in it for the gold but sure to come through at the end.
For some viewers, it's sure to be cheesy fun, and it thankfully it knows that it's supposed to be dumb fun and has at least some idea of what dumb fun is supposed to be (again, unlike the recent TRANSFORMERS movie), but too often it misses that target.  This is truly a b-movie, akin to the Saturday matinees of yesteryear, but a crushingly sub-standard one at that..