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.

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.

"Great deeds make us immortal." - "We can't all be so fortunate." Indeed, so this didn't help anyone's career, I presume. Assisted by two young ladies (Milly Carlucci, Sonia Viviani), Hercules looks for the lost 7 thunderbolts of Zeus. One for example is hidden inside an electric fire monster he must hit on the head to cause a short circuit. Hercules flies around in space a lot (this is after all a movie by the director of "Star Crash") and beats monsters painted by a five year old: Rotoscoping at its worst. The only thing I missed in the 80s video game look was a "Game over" text insert. The gods are beamed to Earth in a flash of green light with a squeaking electronic noise. Glowing shapes that reminded me of advertising for washing powder (cleaning ghosts or something like that) attack Hercules, men in rotten rubber costumes do the same - the adversaries look a lot cheaper than those in the first movie which was already abysmal. This sequel is less fun because it is less ambitious. The huge pathos of the first movie, trying to be monumental, is what made it so funny. Here, it's just a quick rehash, much less entertaining.

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.

Lou Ferrigno returns once again in this demented sequel to Luiggi Cozzi's earlier film; And believe it or not, this one is even more brazenly stupid than its predecessor! - Yes, I kid thee not! This time, our hero Herc is called back to earth on a perilous mission to retrieve Zeus's seven magic thunderbolts which have been stolen by some renegade Gods. Aiding our hero is a pretty, busty heroine who bears an uncanny resemblance to pop princess Kylie Minogue(!) - so much so in fact, that during one particular scene, I could have sworn I was watching the video to 'I should be so lucky'.

Um....anyway, in order to collect each of the thunderbolts, our man must first slay each of the monsters 'housing' them. But by gum, if this wasn't bad enough, Herc only has a limited amount of time to complete the task for, due to the cosmic imbalance caused by the absence of the thunderbolts in the heavens, the moon is now on a collision course for earth!!! Yes, the pressure is very much on and wouldn't you know it - just to add EVEN MORE to problems, King Minos from the first film is resurrected - a villain with an especial grudge against our hero after he defeated him previously.

Like its dopey forerunner, this effort makes the monumental mistake of combining ill thought out sci-fi elements with Greek myths - the end result being a bizarre mess and one rife for ridicule. Having said this however, such ridicule is of course the very reason to watch this in the first place; Yes, this is a gloriously bad film which goes down well with excessive alcohol intake.

Best/worst scenes? God, there's so many to poke fun at but undoubtedly the daftest is the final fight between Herc and Minos which takes place in space(!) and during which, both combatants transform themselves into cosmic manifestations i.e. poor looking animations! Bizarrely for reasons best known to himself, Minos transforms into a dinosaur(!) to which our hero immediately responds by transforming himself into a cosmic gorilla(!) Words sadly can't do this utterly ridiculous scene sufficient justice - you simply have to see it to believe it.

Yes, this is a truly terrible film, no two ways about it, but it is however quiet a hoot and is essential viewing for all self respecting bad movie lovers.