Hercules (1997)

Hercules (1997)

Directed by: Ron Clements, John Musker

Starring: Tate Donovan, Danny DeVito, James Woods

I tend to make fun of nerds who get all nerd rage-y about their fandoms, like people who thought leaving Tom Bombadil out of the new Lord of the Rings movies was a mistake. That’s stupid. However, I am guilty of doing the same sorts of things in a couple areas, which are mostly Arthurian legend and Greek myths. Guess why I didn’t like this movie.

Hercules is the son of Zeus and Hera (no he isn’t) and he’s predicted to be the only one who can stop Hades (Woods) from taking over Mt. Olympus, so Hades sends his minions Bobcat Goldthwait and some other guy to turn him into a mortal by making him drink a potion. This mostly works, making him mortal but still super-strong, and the minions leave him alone.

Herc grows up and learns that Zeus is his dad, who tells him he can only become a god again if he becomes a hero, thus he trains under the tutelage of Phil, a satyr who acts exactly like Danny DeVito from Taxi for some strange reason. Also, Hercules has Pegasus. They fight a bunch of monsters in a big song and dance number, effectively cutting out every cool Hercules story in a montage, then he finally has to fight Hades.

Which is why this movie isn’t a complete loss. Just about every single thing in the film is retardedly inaccurate compared to the original stories, which is fine, I know they want to come up with their own thing for this movie, but it kinda seems like they just heard the phrase “Hercules was a strong Greek guy” and made everything up from there. HOWEVER! James Woods is hilarious as Hades, god of the Underworld and main heavy of the film. He’s a fast-talking sarcastic bastard who tricks basically every other character in the film, and he stays the cool James Woods-type guy all the way through. He is literally enough of a reason to watch this movie.

The rest of it just makes me angry to think about, so I’m not even going to mention anything else. Okay, well, I guess I should say that Danny DeVito and Rip Torn (as Zeus) are also pretty good. But still, this is Woods’ show.