Hercules: Extended Cut (Blu-ray + DVD + UltraViolet)
Blu-Ray Reviews | Nov 10th, 2014
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Peter Mullan, John Hurt, Joseph Fiennes, Rebecca Ferguson
Written By: Ryan J. Condal, Evan Spiliotopoulos
Directed By: Brett Ratner
Studio: Paramount
Buy On Amazon.com
This may not be the best movie in the world but it’s entertaining if you turn your brain off. If you’re looking for something more than a mindless action-adventure, you’ll be disappointed.
Hercules is about the half-man, half-god Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) who heads up a group of mercenaries. I’d list who is who in the group but I can’t even remember their names, much less spell them. Hercules has chosen to live life as a mortal but his nephew keeps spreading stories about him to build him up. At some point, Hercules and his group are approached by Ergenia (Rebecca Ferguson), who wants them to help her Father, Lord Cotys (John Hurt) train an army against a warlord.
Like I said, this movie was entertaining but definitely a dumb movie. We’ve all seen these types of movies before so this doesn’t offer up anything new. This is the second Hercules movie to come out in 2014 so just goes to show you how cookie cutter this is. Half the time I felt like I was watching the Scorpion King because it felt very similar. Just exchange some of the characters and it feels like the same movie.
What will probably get people annoyed with Hercules is the grounded in reality approach. Well its not fully grounded but a lot of the mythological stuff is missing. The cartoon/CGI snakes and animals in the movie looked awful in the movie and kind of took me out of the movie. It was a notch up from SyFy movies in terms of CGI, which isn’t saying much. The snakes looked the worst but some of the other animals weren’t as bad. The fight scenes were fun to watch though.
I don’t know what it is about Dwayne Johnson movies, but I enjoy a lot of them. He took over for Arnold pretty much and I enjoyed a lot of his movies as well. Arnold’s movies were more graphic and violent though. This movie is more cartoony violent than anything. The battles were fun to watch and seeing Hercules used his half-god like strength on people was amusing. As far as the other actors are concerned, Ian McShane serves as the comic relief, witty old man of the group well. Ingrid Bolsø Berdal rounded out the men as the eye candy warrior. I literally laughed out loud when I saw Joseph Fiennes as the King. What a silly wig he had on! For the most part, the actors weren’t the problem but the script was so bland. I didn’t really give a crap about any of the characters.
The Blu-Ray contains both an extended cut and the theatrical cut. I honestly don’t know what was added in the extended cut and the movie is still fairly short at an hour and forty minutes. The special features also include featurettes about the cast, weapons training, the special effects, some deleted scenes and audio commentary.
Hercules doesn’t offer up anything new and is mindless fun, at least I thought it was entertaining at times. It’s still a bad movie but the only saving grace of this is the charm of Dwayne Johnson and some of the cast. They obviously didn’t take this movie too seriously and you shouldn’t either.
Features:
Audio Commentary
Brett Ratner and Dwayne Johnson: An Introduction
Hercules and His Mercenaries
Weapons!
The Bessi Battle
The Effects of Hercules
Deleted/Extended Scenes
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Bottom Line: Entertainingly dumb
Running Time: 98 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:
