Watched: Hercules

Hercules (2014). Not to be confused with The Legend of Hercules (2014, starring Kellan Lutz as Kellan Lutz playing Hercules, what a buffoon), any of the Italian Hercules movies from the 50's/60's, Hercules in New York (1970), with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hercules (1983) and its sequel The Adventures of Hercules (1985) with Lou Ferrigno as the title character, Hercules (1997), American animated feature, Little Hercules (2009), Immortals (2011) or Hercules Reborn (2014). THREE HERCULES MOVIES in 2014 alone. Before that, he'd popped up here and there, definitely in sword-and-sandals fare, but hadn't really had his own thing since the Lou Ferrigno/Shwarzenegger thing in the 70's/80's or the Italian films, most of which were apparently not even about Hercules but were simply recut and dubbed so as to pretend that they were.

Anyway. All of this is to say: popular character. Been done before. So what is Brett "I-excel-at-mediocrity" Ratner's take? Hercules is not actually the hero or the son of a god, just a leader of a rag-tag band of do-gooders that includes Al Swearengen (I MISS YOU DEADWOOD COME BACK TO US) and an ersatz Nicole Kidman. Which is all well and good, except this movie reminds me of some other recent contributions in that it cant stick to that only-reality promise (Troy, anyone?), because at the end The Rock (sorry, no, not Hercules, I love you Dwayne The Rock Johnson because you are charming and lovable and very handsome but you are still just Dwayne the Rock Johnson wearing a lion hoodie) displays what is clearly greater-than-human strength to escape his bonds and save the day. So.... what? He's just really strong sometimes? Is that what we're going with? JUST COMMIT TO SOMETHING BRETT RATNER! Just... commit to stopping. Please. I've already committed myself to never forgiving you for X-Men III, the least you could do is commit to not making any more tepid, bullshit by-the-numbers action garbage. And if you really feel you must, don't take Dwayne the Rock Johnson down with you. I love that guy.

Okay, sit down Joseph Fiennes.

UGH.