Hercules (2014) - Can you smell what Hercules is cooking? - Review - SPOILERS

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is back, semi-naked and as big as ever. We all know Johnson isn't an actor that can play a role in the calibre of Dicaprio's Wolf of Wall Street or 12 Years a Slave's Chiwetel Ejiofor. Raised in the WWE(F), he was always going to be a showman, a man of the people if you will. Action was his forte and that is where he belongs. Tag him in for Expendables 4 and we're in for a treat. If Stallone would like to get him, that would be wonderful.

Moving on. Hercules isn't really the Hercules many of us have seen in the past. Obviously we have followed him take on the giant evils of the world from the Hydra to the Nemean Lion but now we have glossed over them. To avoid the typical remake, they showed Hercules after these events. A mere mercenary driven away from Athens due to the death of his family which was detailed as a murder by him. Obviously, this is not true. If you couldn't have guessed that from the off-set, you really need to start watching some decent TV. As a mercenary, Hercules and his entourage are called upon by the King of Thrace to defend the land from the a dark tyranny in the civil war but all doesn't really go to plan. Plot wise, the story is nothing extreme. Yeah, there's a few twists and turns but its nothing we haven't already seen.

Previously I spoke about The Rock's acting. Obviously it wasn't wondrous. Although I'm aware he passed out several times while filming the scene with the chains which he requested to be iron to make it feel real, it seems like an attempt to appear as a better actor than he really easy and wasn't a very extreme moment to watch. Often enough, I didn't feel that Johnson really had the vocal depth to really do Hercules justice, especially on a battlefield. To be completely frank, the general acting was actually pretty poor. Ian McShane was alright and fairly funny at points but in the reality of things, he couldn't carry as cast that look as if they are just there for some fun. With American Horror Stories Joseph Fiennes I expect a lot more from someone which such credible material behind them but with a character that walks like a moron whose arms have locked into the stupidest position imaginable and has a back-story of the characters from 50 Shades of Grey, I can't pin all the blame on him.

Because I may be worth it

The real reason Hercules is going to make money is because its an action movie. Although I have to give fair warning that in the 90 minute film, the last 30 minutes were where the action became truly enjoyable. With the attack on a settlement of bewitched corpses, I can't understand how repetitive and simple it all is. Considering Hercules tropes around with a damn club and completely ignores the enormous blade he has hanging around his cart, you would think that this club is something magical but its neigh on useless against a bloody horde. One instance, which somehow made it through into the cinema was one of the corpses running at the King. It appears that someone decided to max out the contrast button and then add a splash of faeces and PVA him onto the silver screen onto to be splatted away seconds later. At points the visuals were decent but the incredibly bad instance is something that haunts producers and directors and none of them actually picked up on it.

A half decent story, a cast of actors who don't really act, alright action and visual incidents resembling that of the inside of a lab monkey's cage all seem like really bad ideas to see this movie. Although Hercules stands as a movie that is so bad, it's good. The last 30 minutes were actually decent in general and Ian McShane's inevitable death was somewhat ruined in the trailer but if you really fancy something where you can watch Dwayne Johnson shout a lot, this is the movie for you. I may be being a little extreme on the whole thing but the movie seems like a 6/10 for me.