The Adventures of Hercules
"Monsters of every description battle for the honor of killing Hercules!" - from the trailer
release year: 1985
genre: fantasy adventure
viewing setting: home DVD, 2/21/15
synopsis: When the gods have problems, they call on Hercules, because he's super strong and indestructible and can fly through space and stuff.
impressions: I could say so much about this movie. It's not really fantasy, because there are a lot of space/scifi elements in it, and it doesn't really work. At least this time, Hercules didn't throw three different things from the Earth into space, one of them being himself. Anyway. They tried to have a coherent plot, since Zeus' seven thunderbolts were stolen by other gods and now he's powerless. Enter Hercules, brought back from the state of being a star/constellation. Each of the stolen thunderbolts is in a specific, not-hidden, not-unknown location guarded by a mythical monster, many of whom just seem to happen to be along the route that Hercules was going anyway. Hercules was in fine form again. Every single punch that he threw, in this entire movie, came with some kind of lightning force blast effect. Of course, most of the enemies he punched just got right back up, so he had to punch them a few more times. Often, they would then just vanish. I'm not making that up. Also featured were a pair of "little people" who looked and acted a lot like the sisters from Mothra. And a floating energy-skull. And human sacrifice. And people turning into balls of energy so they could travel underwater. I'm not making that up either. And let's not forget the final battle, in which the bad guy transforms into some sort of Godzilla-shaped energy being...resulting in Hercules then transforming into some sort of King Kong-shaped energy being...so that they could then have an energy fight in space. I couldn't make that up if I tried.
something this movie has that no other movie has: The moon hurtling toward the Earth...and then being stopped by a supersized guy/demigod/Hercules.
acting: Due to dubbing, Lou Ferrigno wasn't given a chance to act here, so we'll never know. In fact, everyone was dubbed, so I'm just going to identify a few highlights. Lou was huge and ripped and bearded, and made a convincing hero in the fight scenes. Milly Carlucci was a warrior-woman and quite easy on the eyes. William Berger is the evil guy from the first movie, resurrected here so that Hercules can thrash him some more.
final word: Certainly one of the ten worst movies ever made.
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