Directors: Ron Clements
John Musker
Writers: Ron Clements (Animation Screenplay)
John Musker (Animation Screenplay)
Donald McEnery (Animation Screenplay)
Bob Shaw (Animation Screenplay)
Irene Mecchi (Animation Screenplay)
Kaan Kaylon (Story)
Kelly Wightman (Story)
Randy Cartwright (Story)
John Ramirez (Story)
Jeff Snow (Story)
Vance Gerry (Story)
Kirk Hanson (Story)
Tamara Lusher-Stocker (Story)
Francis Glebas (Story)
Mark Kennedy (Story)
Bruce M Morris (Story)
Don Dougherty (Story)
Thom Enriquez (Story)
Here's a little insight as to how I write these things. I get who wrote the film who directed it and any extra info I need and then I watch the movie I'm going to write about. My initial line comes after I've written my notes. I think I watched Hercules once back when I was in school, like in year 7 so I don't really remember how I thought of it so I'll be going into this with a clear mind. I looked at all my information and I already have doubts. Look at the fucking state of that, for real just look at it. This is either going to be the most underrated thing I've ever seen in my entire 19 years of life OR it's gonna be a fucking mess. I just finished writing up Cry-Baby and it's 4 am now, I just thought I'll get my initial information out of the way first so I can just get a brew in the morning (1 pm but who even cares?) And I can get straight into it. Looking at that fucking list is already making me want to procrastinate. I'm gonna go to bed and I'll be back to writing this in a few hours...hopefully.
*12 hours later*
Right, I may have procrastinated but gimmie a break, I was up until 4 am and couldn't sleep til around 6 am so y'know. As predicted, however, this sucked. Fucking 18 writers for this and they came up with the most boring, clichéd, done to death story. That I swear stole from both The Little Mermaid and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the music department. Maybe it was just me wishing to hear something good or there were themes of it and they most definitely weren't hidden. For reference, I got Hellfire vibes from the number I can go the distance and I got some Kiss the girl vibes from I won't say I'm in love. Like I said, maybe that's just me thinking that but I just felt it there.
So because this sucked there's a fair amount of problems, one of which I've already talked about. 18 fucking writers just for such a done story is such a big problem, it's understandable don't get me wrong, having that many people working on the same thing are obviously going to cause some creative differences and hard compromise. Hell working in a creative group sometimes it's best to go with the easier and safer option to please everyone and have a better working environment, it's a shame that the film suffered because of this because they could have made this very interesting. Personally, I think if you have a group that big writing for the same thing maybe split them off into smaller groups of people who have similar ideas, these groups write the script and everybody comes together once done and works together to combine all these scripts in a logical, coherent way to make a good film. I know that's probably not how it's done due to time constraints and budgets and a whole heap of other things but if it was possible then maybe if there was such a big team this could work? I don't know, moving on.
Another issue would be how Hercules (Tate Donovan) parents break the news to him about him being adopted. The story itself was done off screen as we've already seen what happened, but it's Hercules reaction to it that gets me. He's just kind of like "oh ok, I'll go talk to Zeus then and see what the big guy thinks." He doesn't seem to process it, he doesn't seem to be sad or grateful or confused, he just seems to be ok with it. Now I'm not an expert on being left for dead as an infant or even adopted but I feel like after being told you're adopted at the very least would leave you feeling pretty confused, maybe even angry at your biological parents for giving you up, possibly even grateful to your adopted parents for taking you in and loving you regardless of them not being blood-related. Throw in being left for dead and you've got a whole new set of emotion to deal with and like I said, I'm no expert on this subject but Hercules just seems to roll with it like he forgot to put his dishes in the sink or something. A mild inconvenience but it can be sorted out pretty quickly.
Finally, I'm going to talk about the artistic concept. Ancient Greece meets Vegas? Does that fit? I mean it worked for Aladdin which this film is kinda ripping off really, I mean think about it; the most likeable character is blue, ancient city in the past with the most likeable character making references to pop culture today, an independent female character who needs saving at the end. It's Aladdin in Greek clothing. The people who worked on this were flailing about struggling to come up with something to bring the company back to its great stride, remembered how popular Aladdin was and thought "holy Hell, let's do that but Hercules instead". I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't so obvious but...it is and it's a bother.
Positively speaking, the artwork is beautiful. It's done by Gerald Scarfe, an English artist who has done work on projects such as Pink Floyd: The Wall and a fair amount of other work for Pink Floyd and other minor projects like opening credits for Yes Minister. His work is really interesting to look at and while it is still interesting and lovely to look at here, it seems muted and out of place in a Disney feature.
Another positive is James Woods as Hades. Oh my gosh, bless this man for doing this role. I'm not going to say that this performance and character save the film, they don't, but they do make you look forward to something other than the end credits. Woods doesn't portray Hades as an evil deity, he plays it more like a stressed out guy who got the shitty end of the stick and has to deal with what he's got. It seems to make him more human and normally I'd say that it sucks and you should go all out and make him evil but considering there is such a lack of relatable characters in the film, coming to a grand total of 1 including Hades, it's a good thing...for once. I think that with all the Disney live-action origin stories, and considering they're giving the actual devil a more human backstory, I think they could maybe give this guy a pretty cool backstory.
Overall, this sucked, I got so bored watching it but I got through it and I've managed to write about it as best I could, I'm sorry it's not a huge in depth discussion on the inaccuracy relating to the Grecian mythology and the story of Hercules but...I guess that'll make the kids wanna get into learning this stuff and so it can inspire educational motivation. Anyway, I have food so I'm gonna get eating and then I'm gonna start working on my next film. I should probably stop attacking Disney too...
This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD orBluray.
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