Hercules In The Underworld

With a title like that, I was really starting to hope that things were going to pick up. Having Hercules venture into the underworld, maybe Orpheus-style, to stir things up? How could you go wrong? Well, here's how:

For starters, you begin your episode with Michael Hurst (who we are supposed to pretend didn't play Iolaus in the first movie, because now he's dyed his hair black) and some other guy getting burned alive when a glowing green crack opens in the middle of the street.

Meanwhile, Hercules is living in domestic bliss. It's years after the events of "The Circle Of Fire," giving him and Deianeira enough time to churn out a few quarter-god spawn, at least one of whom has an inexplicable New Zealand accent. First, their quaint family day is interrupted by a big dude attacking people in a nearby city. Like the giant in the second movie, he is only causing trouble in order to get a chance to fight Hercules. Once dispatched, Hercules returns home, where, again, someone comes to his house to ask for help. This time the disruptor is a blonde woman, who insists that he come and rescue her city.

I started writing out a plot summary explaining exactly how Hercules ends up in the underworld, but I found that all I was doing was summarizing, because there wasn't really anything worth commenting on. So here's a super fast recap so that we can get there.

1) Herc's centaur buddy Nessus wants to make use of his horse parts with Herc's wife. He tries to force her, so Herc shoots him with an arrow (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist)
2) Nessus tells Deianeira that if she wants Hercules to be faithful, she should get him to wear the cloak that Nessus just bled onto.
3) Deianeira feels that following the instructions of a horse-rapist is the best way to ensure marital bliss and gives Hercules the cloak.
4) Hercules arrives in the town, only to realize that the chasm that has opened up leads into the underworld. He doesn't want to lose his family, so he tells the townsfolk to figure it out themselves, and he peaces out.
5) He puts on the cloak, which attacks and burns him. This pisses him off, so he dives into the pit.
6) Deianeira hears about this, assumes that he's dead, and walks off the end of a cliff.

There, now we're in the underworld and it looks like a big cave, which, y'know, makes sense, since it's under the world. There, Hercules fights a variety of enemies, including seductive snake women, as well as everyone he had ever killed. Rather than taking on a horde of baddies, he "cleverly" turns them against each other, so that he can be on his way.

Included in these villains is Nessus, who taunts Herc, and lets him know about Deinaneira's fate. He opens a portal ('cause, apparently, when you die you get superpowers) in order to prove he's telling the truth, showing Deianeira happy in another wing of the afterlife. Once it closes, Hercules pleads for Nessus to do his trick again, so that he can see her one last time. He yells "psych" (not actually) and dives through, arriving in the much more chill section of hell.

What bothered me about this whole sequence is that, while Hercules does get upset about his wife being dead, the movie ignores a great possibility to establish any kind of credibility or emotional resonance. Deianeira's suicide (I'm so tired of typing that name) is brief and sudden, as is her husband's reaction. There isn't any time or effort put into creating any kind of sympathy. Dude's wife dies, and he treats it like just another day at the office.

Now that he's passed through the portal, he finds Deianeira but she doesn't remember him. That's fine, because he can just kiss her and she will suddenly remember everything, even though Hades (the God of the underworld) personally stripped her memories, in order to ensure her eternal peace. There's no consideration of the possible ramifications of tearing someone out of paradise, it's just what you should do, because being dead isn't good. If you want to see a much better example of what it would be like for someone to be ripped back from heaven, see season 6 of Buffy. Anyway, Hades shows up and is like "Dude, what're you doing?" and Herc's all "I'm taking my wife back" so Hades goes "no" and Herc says "try and stop me" and Hades goes "I don't normally do this, but, if you do me a favour and find my dog, you can go ahead" so Herc goes "k." By the way, Hades, instead of being all sinister and awesome (like in the Disney movie) or y'know, in any way the bad-ass character you would expect to be in charge of Hell, looks like a pansy wearing a toga.

I'd hate to spoil the thrilling conclusion, but Herc finds the dog (Cerberus), and captures it by treating it nicely, compared to the others who are hunting it, who beat it. He tells them to remember the lesson he has taught them (even though he's only doing it because someone taught him a similar lesson earlier in the movie... also known as plagiarism) and returns home with his wife, where they laugh about the silly adventure they've just had, much like the writers probably did when they let their children write the script (likely in crayon) for this, once again, dumb movie.

Rating: 2.0 stars