Hercules (1983) – Review

Superhero fans will most likely know professional bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno from his stint playing The Incredible Hulk for the CBS television series co-starring the late great Bill Bixby but when that show concluded in 1982 Ferrigno set his sights on the big screen in the hopes of achieving the superstardom of fellow bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, but exactly how does one go about attaining such a lofty goal? Well, as Arnie’s big-screen debut was in the film Hercules in New York what better way to launch your own career than by taking your own shot at depicting one of history’s most legendary superheroes?

There have been many Hercules movies released over the years but the one produced by Cannon Films and Golan-Globus is by far the most entertainingly bad entries in the genre, in fact, I’d say that the 1983 Hercules exists solely for the purpose of making Disney animated Hercules feel a little better about itself for how fast and lose it ran with the mythology. The movie opens with a narrator explaining the creation of the Universe “In the beginning, before creation, there was darkness. From the primordial explosion there emerged the fire of chaos. Chaos merged with darkness and from this union were born the elements; night, day, matter and air.” Despite only one of those being actual “elements” the narrator goes on to explain how from of all this Pandora’s Jar emerged and when it broke the fragments became the planets in the solar system. Basically, even a person with the briefest knowledge of Greek mythology will have a problem with that opening narration.

It looks like Pandora’s Box came from Spencer’s Gift not the dawn of time.

We are then told that “The first beings that the mists of creation offered forth were not men, they were of the supremists and became gods, they claimed the moon as their home, there to deliberate and decide the ultimate fate of mankind and all that lived.” On the moon we find Zeus (Claudio Cassinelli), Athena (Delia Boccardo) and Hera (Rossana Podestà) discussing the issue of Pandora’s Jar breaking – as the Jar breaking resulted in the birth of the gods I’m not sure why this issue is just coming up now – and Zeus is concerned that “With Pandora’s Jar broken all the forces of evil are let loose” and he believes that there needs to be a balance, to which Athena suggest “If you don’t want to equalize the powers of all men then why don’t you increase those of one.” And with that irrefutable piece of logic, Zeus creates Hercules and impregnates the Queen of Thebes with his sperm of pure light.

Were the Greek gods time-sharing with The Inhumans?

Ten minutes in and this film will most likely have sent every Greek scholar screaming from the room but it only gets “better” from here as we then get the dastardly King Minos (William Berger) and his evil daughter Ariadne (Sybil Danning) orchestrating to overthrow the King and Queen of Thebes by stealing their magic sword and murdering them in their beds. Lucky for Greece, a chambermaid escaped with the infant prince and placed little Hercules in a small boat that drifts down the river, because if we aren’t worried about getting Greek mythology right why not throw in the story of Moses as well? Hercules (Lou Ferrigno) is raised by some kindly farmers and becomes big and strong, despite Hera’s numerous attempts to kill him, which raises the question “Why is Hera so bent on killing Hercules?” In the myth, Hercules was the product of one of Zeus’ many infidelities so you can understand Hera not caring for the guy but in this movie he was simply a way to balance the scales and Hera is acting all evil for no apparent reason.

“Hera, will you please just get over yourself.”

There really isn’t much of a plot to this movie as it mainly consists of episodic adventures with Hercules encountering various antagonists and none of them making much sense. The film does try to hang the whole thing together with a quest to save the kidnapped princess Cassiopeia (Ingrid Anderson) from being sacrificed by King Minos. Still, we don’t get much time with Hercules and Cassiopeia together – they briefly meet while he’s performing only one of the Twelve Labours of Hercules – and their “love story” is thinner than this film’s grasp on Greek mythology. We also get King Minos recruiting Daedalus (Eva Robins) to create monsters to kill Hercules, which may sound cool but when it comes to monsters the people at Cannon Films and Golan-Globus are not known for putting their money where their mouth is. In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a brilliant craftsman, he built the great labyrinth for Minos and made wings for him and his son Icarus, but in this movie, Daedalus is an avatar of chaos and has a thing for building giant robots, which Hercules then dispatches with ease.

“Daedalus, maybe we should try winged monkeys next.”

Hercules isn’t alone on his quest to rescue Cassiopeia as in his travels he finds himself marooned on the island of the sorceress Circe (Mirella D’Angelo) who first appears to him as an ugly crone but later is revealed to be beautiful, but why she falls in love with him and aids him on his quest for Cassiopeia is never made clear. Then, when our hero needs her powers the most, they fail “You made me fall in love! And when that happens to a sorceress, she loses all her powers. It’s the law of Aphrodite. I, the enchantress, have been enchanted!” It has to be quite apparent that declaring one’s love to a guy who is on a quest to rescue his “one true love” could make things a bit awkward but lucky for Hercules she gets killed taking a lightning arrow meant for him, launched from one of Daedalus’s mechanical monstrosities.

A literal deus ex machina of love.

Stray Observations:

• We see a young Hercules gaining strength by pushing a millstone around which is a blatant lift of “The Wheel of Pain” from Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian.
• Hercules is a dick to bears. The scene with Hercules fighting a bear is probably the most notable aspect of this movie, with him throwing it into space and it becoming the constellation Ursa Major, but even more embarrassing is the fact that it used footage from William Girdler’s Grizzly and a bear suit that was even more laughable than the one used in The Secrets of Isis.
• In this movie the mythical monster Hydra guards “The Gates of Hell” – I guess Hades gave Cerberus the day off – but this particular Hydra is of the bargain basement variety as it only has three heads. It’s also mechanical and built by Daedalus for some reason.
• We are told that Atlantis is the capital of Thera but Atlantis was actually a continent, not a city. Did the writers of this movie not even have access to Google?
• Minos is a self-proclaimed man of science, yelling such bon mots as “Science! For the sake of science!” but he still sacrifices virgins to a volcano, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, and correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Cassiopeia the vain mother of Andromeda, the one who tried to sacrifice her daughter to the Kraken?
• Circe and Hercules cross the Rainbow Bridge to reach Hell. WTF?  With all of the Greek mythology to borrow from why did they feel it necessary to take from Norse mythology as well?

That they don’t encounter Heimdall is a missed opportunity.

The original script was apparently filled with violence and gratuitous sex, which is pretty much what you’d find reading the stories of Hercules, but Lou Ferrigno told Menahem Golan that the script was a “piece of shit” and threw it into the garbage. Eventually, a more family/friendly version was decided on, quite against Golan’s wishes, and the result was this mishmash of mythologies and bulging pectoral muscles that failed to please anyone. Sybil Danning later stated that she would’ve preferred to have seen another more “adult” version of Hercules and going by her body of work that was most likely the reason she signed on to the project in the first place, and what’s even a greater crime is how underutilized Danning was with barely ten minutes of screen time, I have to wonder why they bothered to cast her at all. I’ll give it that Lou Ferrigno was in perfect shape to play this demi-god but if they’d gone the “R” rated route of the John Milius Conan the Barbarian we could have gotten a really interesting take on this mythical hero, instead, we were left with a goofy retread of the sword and sandal entries from the 50s and 60s and not even as good as most of those entries. That all said, Lou Ferrigno’s Hercules definitely falls into the category of “So bad it’s good” and can be most enjoyed with friends and a good quantity of alcohol.

Note: Hercules pulls a magic sword from a stone because if you’re going to borrow from Norse mythology you may as well take some liberties with Arthurian legends as well.