Hercules And The Amazon Women

Welcome to the beginning of something of a critical legacy. I'm really bad at starting projects and then not finishing them, but I have nothing but the strongest intentions to see this particular project through. As you may have guessed from the existence of the blog and the way I run it, that I love cataloguing and rating things. That being said, I have wanted for awhile to cover a series in its entirety, from beginning to end, writing reviews for every episode, in order to establish its strongest and weakest seasons/episodes/etc. But what show could I possibly use? The didn't want to restart something I had already begun, nor did I want to play catch-up with a series whose run is still on-going. I wanted to start with a series that people would remember, without necessarily being currently relevent. Then, one day, as I was browsing the racks of a used media shop, there it was... Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Season One.

The first thing that struck me was how many friggin' discs there where. As the clerk popped each of the billion (read seven) discs, I figured that this must have been how TV on DVD first started out, with only a few episodes per. Once I got home and opened it up, I found out that there are actually five made-for-TV movies that ran before the series even began as part of a Universal-sponsored syndication package called "Action Pack." Apparently, following the success of these movies, the series was created, with some changes from the established canon. But, we'll get to those in time.

So, to start us off, I begin with the first movie, called "Hercules And The Amazon Women." At first, we catch up to three unknown guys, running through a forest, trying to escape in order to get a message to Hercules. Two of them are picked off and murdered, leaving a single survivor to pass along their message.

After a series of landscape shots, we enter a town that is apparently inhabited by simple peasant folk, including the worst hairdresser in the world. That's not actually part of the story, but somehow this kid's mullet was deemed appropriate for television:



I mean, just look at that thing. Good god! Who thought that that was a good idea? I trust that the hair and wardrobe department was either admonished for letting that slip through, or beaten for making it happen.

Moving on, this mullet-kid, as well as everyone else in the town and the world treats women like garbage. Once Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) makes his appearance, he expresses similar attitudes, expecting his mother to wash his feet, and not understanding why his bestest friend (Michael Hurst) would marry a woman who couldn't cook or clean. The effect is immediately unsettling, and I started to wonder if I had just missed an enormous misogynist slant when I first watched the series.

Once the messenger arrives, he tells Hercules that his village is under seige by some beasts who won't let them leave. He asks for Hercules' help, who agrees, and, with Iolaus tagging along, they make their journey. The odd thing about the journey is that it is supposed to take two days on foot. So they walk, leaving from an area where people are comfortable walking around without sleeves. In the next shot (possibly day two), they are trudging through snow, before arriving in their tropical destination. A healthy person can walk approximately 30 miles (48.2) kilometres in a day, assuming no breaks were taken, and that they were walking quickly. While I may not know Greece's climate very well, I find it kind of unlikely that the temperature would by about 40 degrees (celcius) in the distance from my house to Sarnia. The scenery might be pretty, but it's just plain dumb.

Regardless, Hercules and co. arrive in town (without being attacked in the forest), and eventually Hercules finds out (when Iolaus gets shanked) that the beasts are actually the women of the village, who got fed up with being treated poorly. This leads the way to Hercules meeting the queen of the women (Amazons), named Hippolyta, who is played by that woman from "Touched By An Angel." From her, he learns, in about fifteen minutes, that women should be respected and his entire misogynist upbringing, courtesy of his father Zeus, is negated. Apparently, it's just that easy to stop being sexist. Also of note, Lucly Lawless plays one of the Amazons. She's not Xena, but does play the hard-ass enforcer Amazon.

I'm sorry to keep giving away so much of the "plot," but it is only then that I can point out its ridiculousness. After his conversion, Hercules returns to the village, to warn them that the Amazons are about to attack. He assumes this will mean a war, but someone wisens him up that it simply means that the women are showing up in order to participate in unsolicited, forced sex. Hercules takes this opportunity to teach the men that they should treat these women (aka, their rapists) nicely, giving them flowers and saying nice things. I was a little infuriated that the solution for not getting raped is to sing songs to your would-be attacker, and eventually sleep with them anyway. We're supposed to be repulsed by how the women were treated before, but the solution is hardly any better. Sufficed to say, the women then fall in love with the men, including the inevitable Hercules/Hippolyta hook up.

Some other stuff happens, but eventually everyone is happy, except for Hercules, who is in a fit of unwarrented depression when Hippolyta dies (sorry, again). He seeks out his father, Zeus, for help. After about twelve seconds of convincing, Zeus decides that he's just going to alter time so that the whole movie doesn't actually happen. Iolaus and Hippolyta are still alive, and this time, when the messenger shows up, Hercules simply tells him what to do, and moves on, a newly enlightened man, free of any narrative responsibility, since the whole thing didn't really happen.

It would be easy to dismiss this movie as bubblegum television, but it insists on taking on complex issues. It does so in an irresponsible way, and still manages to make a fairly unentertaining film. Unless things start to pick up, the next four movies and six seasons are going to be an enormous test of my patience.

Rating: 1.5 stars