Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson elevates the decent but not great Hercules

When Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson began acting, with a mostly-CGI cameo in The Mummy 2: The Mummiest, any fans of him from his wrestler days thought that he’d become the next Schwarzenegger. With charisma oozing out of every pore and legitimate athleticism, it seemed a perfect fit. So first there was the The Scorpion King, which was very direct to DVD, but hey … it was his first starring movie. But after a few failed starts, Dwayne Johnson turned to kid’s movies, playing a modern day version of Hulk Hogan’s old incongruous one joke movies in The Tooth Fairy.  And then, it was a miracle when he showed up in Fast Five and immediately made every scene he was in interesting. After doing the in the GI Joe sequel and Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain, the old school Rock fans were saying “Finally, The Rock has come back to action movies!”

When Hercules was announced, it seemed like a great idea. The Rock vs mythological monsters? How could it fail? Then it was discovered that it would be based on a lesser known series of comics from Radical Comics called The Thracian Wars which had a far more realistic take on the story. Well, we thought, that might still work. The Rock could still smash heads in a grittier version of the classic tale. And then we found the director was Brett Ratner and we shuddered. After all, the guy hasn’t made a good movie since Rush Hour and to a lesser extent, Rush Hour 2. And then it was decided that the movie would be PG-13 and we said “C’mon, why are you making this so hard? We just want to see The Rock fight the Hydra already!” Well, I have some good news for you. You do get to see that. Sort of.

So Hercules starts as a narrator tells a shouty version of his legend, including showing a montage of him killing several big monsters. But then we discover it’s all a ploy; there are no monsters, just a very strong and talented mercenary who has been spreading the legend to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and find lucrative paying jobs. Hercules is joined by a team of classic archetypes: the sarcastic sociopath Autolycus (named for the mythological son of Hermes, played by Rufus Sewell), mute animalistic Tydeus (named for a Trojan hero from The Iliad, played by Aksel Hennie), Amazonian archer Atalanta (named for mythological Greek virgin huntress, played by Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), and vague prophet Amphiaraus (actually a seer in Greek mythology, played by Ian McShane). Rounding them out is Iolaus, Hercules’ nephew, played by Reece Ritchie. Does each have a minor character arc? No? Are there at least almost character arcs? You betcha!

Okay, so Hercules (amusingly, the film translates his name from the Greek version, Heracles, but that’s Hollywood for you) has an arc, with a pretty serious and dark backstory. But although The Rock does his best to bring a bit of pathos and depth to the character’s history, the characterization is paper thin and pacing is all over the place. Unfortunately, Brett Ratner doesn’t do the best job here. This is a surprisingly violent film, considering that there is absolutely no blood or gore, yet there’s a bit of profanity and a single bared breast. It’s very weird to me, because it seems like it’s not really right for PG-13, yet it’s not nearly bloody enough to be rated R. But honestly, it should’ve been. That would’ve made the frequent fight scenes more believable and less cartoonish. Ah, but here is the real issue with the movie: it’s tone is inconsistent. It can’t figure out if it wants to be cartoonish and ridiculous or serious and hardcore. Instead, it has a bunch of fun fight scenes and a lot of boring scenes without fighting.

John Hurt plays the King of Thrace who hires Hercules and his band of mercs to take out the bandit leader Rhesus, and perhaps not everything is as it seems? And he also has a boring daughter, but she’s boring and pointless, forget her character. Instead, it’s the team that works almost entirely. They quip and riff off each other, and demonstrate killer efficiency in battle like Lord of the Rings superwarriors. I haven’t read the original graphic novel the movie is based on, so perhaps the story works better there. But here, it’s just a series of set pieces watching The Rock and company do some fun stuff. Sure, the take on it, that Hercules just uses his own legend for marketing purposes and isn’t really the son of Zeus is a cool idea, but that’s really the only original idea here. Everything else is very paint by numbers and exactly what you’d expect. Every single twist (by which I mean two of them) are very obvious the instant you think about them.

In summation, this isn’t a great movie, but it’s fun enough. You can ignore the tiresome attempts at being serious and just appreciate The Rock yelling, smirking, and kicking ass. Oh, and you get to see him punch a horse. For some, that may just be worth the price of admission.