'Drink from the Black Lotus, it will deaden
the mind and heighten the senses!' is what the character of
Ariadne, played by the completely legendary Sybil Danning
would tell Hercules, played by the completely legendary Lou
Ferrigno. If I had to guess, everybody involved with
making this semi-classic from back in 1983 was on the Black
Lotus, because no one with an alert mind would've signed off
on anything that we saw in this movie, but I can see where
heightened senses, especially the sense of insanity would've
been cool with just about everything. Insanity is a
sense, right?
Deep Voiced narration guy starts us off with undoubtedly the
craziest version of creation I've ever heard of. Even
though I couldn't make heads or tails of most of it, I do know
that Zeus and Hera and some other chick observe Earth from the
moon, an Earth that was created by the smashing of Pandora's
vase. Anyway, evil is getting the upper hand on Earth so
Zeus creates a light creature to enter the soul of a baby to
grow and become the champion of man. Kind wondering what
happened to that poor baby's original soul, but we will keep
moving on.
Now it doesn't take long for me to get completely confused in
this movie as I believe the character of Minos (William
Berger) stages a coup, along with his daughter Ariadne, and
had plans on killing this baby, the legitimate future king,
but the child is saved. Minos also steals a wacky sword
during this madness which will come into play much later in
this movie.
Regardless, this baby is rescued and grows up all big and
strong and stuff, looking like Lou Ferrigno and is working the
farm minding his own business. But that darned Hera, in
yet another thing I don't understand, is fighting against Zeus
on the side of evil. Kind of. I get in the
mythology that Hera despised Zeus… but this ain't really
that. This is also about the time the wackiness kicks
off in full effect, like when the stock footage / man in bad
suit bear attacks Herc's adopted dad. So upset with this
bear, Herc killed it then threw it into outer space. He
totally did that. Created Ursa Minor in the
process. I did not know this is how that constellation
came to be.
Now Minos is aware of Hercules and wants him
dead, so he uses the scientific talents of Dadalos (Eva
Robbins) to create mechanical stop motion beasts to destroy
Hercules. It's insane. Then Hercules does some
more labors and meets the beautiful Cassiopea (Ingrid
Anderson) who he falls in love with, but alas she is stolen
from him by the completely evil King Minos. I guess he's
evil. Actually, at this point he seems a pretty fair and
just ruler, just wants his people to be brain dead and have
heightened senses. Kind of like we are today.
Anyway, Hercules along with his new hot side kick, the
sorceress Circe (Mirella D'Angelo) must make the trip to…
Hades I think… hell, I don't know. But I do know they
have to save Isabella. And have a light saber
fight. It's insane.
I was going to say that somewhere in the Kingdom of Heaven
sits Luigi Cozzi, the writer and director of this film… but
apparently he's not dead yet. At least as of this
writing. In that case there will
be a special place in Heaven for Mr. Cozzi as he has given us
two of the most glorious cinematic masterpieces ever made in
this film, and the classic 'Star Crash'. Now
'Hercules' isn't quite as transcendent as 'Star Crash' but it
is far more insane. This is one of those movies,
probably more so than any movie ever made, that I would've
paid good money to be in the war room while they were plotting
this thing out. I dig that the plan was for the geniuses
at Golan and Globus to make Big Lou the next Arnold back in
'83, but did these guys actually see 'Star Crash' or
'Contamination' before they turned this movie over to Mr.
Cozzi?
From the first frame to the last, there is nothing in this
film that even pretends to makes any kind of sense. When
the narration guy starts droning on about how creation began,
on one hand you're baffled that someone actually sat down in
front of a typewriter to write this stuff, then you will be
amazed that they convinced someone to say it and then to film
it, but on the other hand you know that this is insane and the
chances are it will only get crazier and you can't wait to see
how crazy it can go. You will not be disappointed.
From the stop motion robot battles, to Herc's propensity to
throw things into Outer Space, to the women in this family
friendly film who consistently wear next to nothing, to the
bad dubbing, including of Lou Ferrigno who speaks perfectly
fine English, all the way to the epic light sword battle to
close out the show… this was an experience like few
others. Even minor things were classically insane,
like the guy who rode on horseback for miles to tell Big Herc
that his mom was being attacked by a giant robot bird, only to
ride back without taking Hercules along, forcing him to run
the distance. Herc didn't get there in time. He
should've murdered that dude. Distraught, Herc burns
down his own house… though it's made out of stone and probably
won't burn. Herc is stupid. Even though Zeus told
me he's the smartest of them all. He's stupid too.
Because of the three Hercules films released in 2014, I had to
track back to watch the craziest one of them all. A film
which should be taught at all film schools on how to
completely annihilate a myth. Nothing does it quite like
Hercules 1983.
