PJ Brendel

The film Hercules Reborn is not accurate to the character. It only truly gets right two aspects of Hercules: his name, and that he killed his family. The Hercules portrayed in this film lacks most of the key traits of Hercules. He shows bouts of rage like the real Hercules, but the sense of nobility in Hercules is gone. In this adaptation, Hercules is a drunk, he denies his godly parentage, and he lacks much of the strength he is so famous for. On multiple occasions in this film, Hercules struggles to best ordinary people in combat and when he does it is not through his brute strength but rather luck of the use of weaponry. The Hercules of Hercules reborn also lacks many of Hercules’s key physical features. Imagery such as Hercules’s lion cape and signature club are missing. One interesting change that Hercules Reborn makes is the labors of Hercules. In myth, it is undisputed that after Hercules goes mad and kills his family he is sent to perform twelve impossible labors for the King Eurystheus. During these twelve labors, Hercules performs the feats that he is most famous for. Hercules Reborn chooses to rewrite this. Instead of performing twelve heroic labors to atone for his family’s death, Hercules becomes a drunk. He eventually reclaims some of his heroism when a young soldier comes to him seeking help. The soldier’s village has been taken over by the evil king Nikos who also stole his bride. The soldier begs Hercules to help and eventually he does because he recognizes the name Nikos. It turns out that Nikos was once Hercules’s comrade and was the one who drugged him and made him kill his family. This is also another major change from Hercules’s story as in almost all adaptations the madness inflicted upon Hercules comes from Hera, with no mention of a king Nikos. It feels as though this story is that of some guy trying to rescue his bride from an evil king with some other random guy helping him who happens to be named Hercules. The Hercules in this film is the worst adaptation of any myth I’ve ever seen. The film basically vaguely grasps the concept of Hercules and plops him in a random story with an evil king. Overall, I was not surprised that the film lacks a proper characterization of Hercules. The film overall is not very well done and focuses more on having lackluster action scenes rather than telling a story. Everything seems very forced in it and very predictable. I would not recommend the film to anyone to learn about Hercules or even just to watch. The best part of the film was that it was under two hours, which I was thankful for. The film is a good example of Hercules’s popularity in modern culture because it shows that even today stupid movie ideas have a chance of being made just cause they use blockbuster words like “Hercules”.