Hercules And The Lost Kingdom

As the second movie in the series, "Hercules And The Lost Kingdom" had two tasks, one much easier than the other. Firstly, it had to be better than the first. Unless this was going to become "Jeff Dunham And The Lost Kingdom," this would pretty much be impossible (if you don't get that joke, count yourself lucky... By Fillion, that man is not funny). Secondly, the movie would have to establish some kind of credibility to the series, since so far, I am really unimpressed. As it turns out, this movie is slightly better, but only because it sucks less.

The story begins with three men running to find Hercules but getting picked off one by one until there is only one survivor to pass along the message (noticing a pattern, here?). Apparently, these guys are being hunted by Hera, queen of the Gods. While other Gods can seemingly come and go into existence, Hera prefers to be sneaky, chasing after them with boulders. It would seem that while the Gods can do pretty much anything they want, their willingness to actually participate in their own schemes depends greatly on the needs of the story. If we need someone to reach Hercules, it only makes sense that Hera would half-ass it, using telekinetic boulder-bowling, rather than a full-on smiting.

Before Hercules gets this message, he is confronted by a giant, who apparently needs to establish some kind of street cred amongst his giant buddies by calling out Herc. Hercules quickly dispatches of his foe, in a scene that is very familiar, as a part of the series' opening credits. Once the messenger arrives, he gives Hercules the message and then disintegrates, courtesy of some Hera smitage. So, either she took a pee break, or she's an attention whore who waits for the most dramatic moments possible to make her move.

So, off Herc goes, and stumbles across a young girl named Deianeira, played by Renee O'Connor (later Gabrielle, Xena's friend/partner/love monkey), who is searching for her destiny. Her way of doing this is to tag along with Hercules on his way to the city of Troy, getting him into trouble and shaking her fists, with her arms at stiff angles. In order to find Troy, they have to find a compass, which they locate in a town inhabited by slaves. Hercules prostitutes himself to their queen (Omphale, played by Elizabeth Hawthorne, who would go on to play Herc's mom in the series... ew) at a slave action in order to get the compass. The village is also where we meet Waylin (Robert Trebor, later Salmoneus on the show), who is really funny in his first scene (all of thirty seconds) but seems limited by the character throughout the rest of the movie.

With the compass, they find their way to a shore where they are eaten by a big snake (also in the opening credits of the series). The scene inside is the first time I actually enjoyed the movie. It's not exactly John Woo action, but watching Hercules crawl around inside the digestive (and later pulminary) tracts of a giant sea snake is kind of cool.

To make a long story short, the duo arrives at Troy to find its habitants deposed by Hera and the city taken over by her samurai-esque minions. As it turns out, Deianeira is the king of Troy's long-lost daughter, a fantasy that she has coincidentally been harbouring all along. The king dies, and she steps out of his tent, dressed to the nines, claiming rulership of the people of Troy. I guess no one would find it suspicious for a woman who nobody had seen before to announce her own sovereignty, especially since the only person who could verify the fact has just died in her presence. Nope, the people of Troy just accept it and listen to her give a speech about how great of a man the king was, and saying that she will maintain his spirit in her rule. The fact that she had spoken to the man for all of 90 seconds is irrelevent. Also, now that Deianeira is the queen, she feels there's nothing wrong with trying to seduce Hercules ("I've changed, can't you see it?"), even though he, thankfully, recognizes that tapping that would make him an absolute peen, since I think she's supposed to be about 15.

Moving on, they fight the samurai guys, including their blue-faced boss, and everyone ends up happy. Then Hera gets all pissy and sucks Hercules up into the heavens, in order to deposit him in a desert somewhere, before being asked by some other dude to help save his village. With this, Hera has once again shown her ability to fuck with people (even Hercules) on a personal, physical level, as long as they've had the opportunity to play out their narrative requirements.

Rating: 2.0 stars, because it's cooler than the first one, but just as insulting to anyone watching it.