It is time to re-imagine what happened to Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) upon the conclusion of his legendary 12 labors. The Greek demigod wanted nothing more than to enjoy the fruits far away from any talk of gods and family, I suppose, but the muscleman takes on the challenge of transforming a soft collection of troops into the greatest (and most bloodthirsty) army of all-time. This second Hercules story arrives courtesy of Brett Ratner, the action-hack-for-hire who made money topping off Bryan Singer’s X-Men trilogy, but somehow still tarnished the reputation of the series. Can Ratner ruin the mythic allure of a demigod, even with The Rock as the foundation of the project? Opens wide July 25. PG-13. Not screened in time for review
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2014.
