Les aventures d'Hercule

More cheesy badly-dubbed greatness from Cannon. This sequel to the classic Hercules has our hero and his humongous pectorals out to recover Zeus' stolen thunderbolts. To do this he must fight guys in ghillie suits and creatures created with poor computer and stop-motion effects. A full day's work for Herc.

Lou Ferrigno is certainly a physical sight to behold and his stone-serious facial expressions at all times makes the movie that much more hilarious because it does not deserve to be taken seriously in the least. Unfortunately, sexy Sybil Danning does not return from the first movie but there are still some scantily-clad Italian babes to feast your eyes on. The special effects are cheap but charmingly so. Love the obsession with neon. The stop-motion Medusa appears to be made from Play-Doh. Lots of bad but quotable lines coming from voices that are clearly not those of the actors. Look, it's glorious garbage of a movie but there's a good deal of fun to be had laughing at it. I'll take unintended entertainment over no entertainment any day.

The Adventures of Hercules (1985) is a childhood favorite that I recently watched for the first time in a long time on Tubi. The storyline follows Hercules return to Earth after Zeus' 7 thunderbolts are stolen and spread across the globe. Upon returning to Earth Hercules and a team of adventures set-out to obtain and return Zeus' cherished thunderbolts.

This movie is directed by Luigi Cozzi (Hercules) and stars Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk), Milly Carlucci (Tomorrow I'm Getting Married), Carla Ferrigno (Black Roses), William Berger (Devil Fish) and Claudio Cassinelli (The Good Thief).

These movies have a classic 80s feel to it and actually reminded me of the Superman films from this era. The soundtrack, opening credits and hero sequences were all classic 80s, as are the special effects. The cast is very good and aligned to the characters to perfection. Ferrigno was an awesome Hercules. The attire, clay animation, props and sets were cool too as were the monsters Hercules fought.

Overall this didn't age well but still provides solid entertainment value for those with 80s nostalgia. I would score this a 4.5-5/10 and recommend watching it once.

I have never seen a movie spend so much time trying to explain the incomprehensible story and still not make any sense. Just like the first movie they constantly talk about science, yet the movie has nothing to do with science. I doubt they even get any of the mythology right. Zeus is a god who has no powers without his thunderbolts. Which can easily be stolen by just about anyone. What is a thunderbolt? The sound that lightning makes has bolts? The only way this movie might be any fun is if you watch at 1.5x speed and take a shot every time someone says "Wait for me".

This cheap-jack follow-up to Luigi Cozzi "Hercules" is just as goofy and tacky, maybe even more than its predecessor. Actually it is. No doubts. Again the clunky sci-fi elements (for science!) finds its way into the Greek mythical adventure… which means good times ahead ("He uses science against godly powers"). That's belly-laughs. Lou Ferrigno returns as Hercules, again bringing the fitting qualities for the role and also being resurrected is King Minos who's played with even more energy again by scene chewing William Berger. Their final climatic showdown has to be seen to be believed… it might be lousy in the outcome, but the light-show (filled with a snake, dinosaur and gorilla) it bestows is bewilderingly stupid. But in the end, this is its charm.

Simply the story follows Hercules being sent to earth to retrieve the Seven Thunderbolts of Zeus, which have been stolen by renegade gods. There he must face certain challenges, while also dealing with an old nemesis King Minos and racing against time as the earth and moon are on a collision course.

Everything here is junky and ludicrous with vividly low-rent set designs, clumsy, but bright optical effects with trip-out side-effects, lame sound effects and eccentric plotting with devious scheming. It's one set-piece after another, as monsters and obstacles enter the fame throughout the journey. Some of these challenges are not much of one, but others are more so. However there's always a laugh there either way. Be it the encounters with the cheap make-up FX, random dramatics and the funny, no frill dialogues. The short running time makes it easier to enjoy, Pino Donaggio composes again by chipping in with another barnstorming music score and director Luigi Cozzi's ham-handed, but physical approach really outdoes itself.

This movie is pretty awful. Not like the old Steve Reeves pictures were not great cinema to begin with, but at least they made some semblance of an effort to at least vaguely resemble the mythology on which they were based. The Ferrigno pictures, on the other hand, don't even bother at all for the most part, other than using the names of characters from Greek (and some Roman) mythology. Instead this picture takes a 'Star Wars' + video game sort of route, creating a nonsensical farrago of cruddy-looking back-projected setpieces and some of the lamest fight sequences you'll ever see (Ferrigno moves like a ground sloth on quaaludes and, consequently, all the people he fights have to be sure and not move any faster). The climactic animated neon showdown between Minos (a character who predated the Hercules of mythology by at least a generation and in no way resembled the fellow in this film) and Hercules is the pinnacle of Italian cheapjack cinema. Utter crap.