The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I'm probably just so used to seeing movies shown on MST3K being awful that I found this to not be that bad. It probably helps that it actually does get good near the end with all the explosions and stuff. The special effects get better. I still wouldn't recommend it of course. This was the time when most movies were in color. You can kind of see how gaudy it looks. It's not as bad as some other movies, but still pales in comparison to even older movies like the 1940 "The Thief Of Baghdad". I guess the atmosphere wasn't bad.Of course, I haven't been following the Hercules films in this series that much, so I didn't really care what was going on. I thought Atlantis was supposed to be underwater? What's the deal with that? A lot of the acting is pretty corny too. I guess this series as a whole wasn't as awful as most. It starts so abruptly. There's just all this action out of nowhere. Well, at least there was something going on at the beginning. **

It takes awhile for this Hercules entry to get going, giving a very dull half hour to start the film. These Italian gladiator movies are a mixed bag, but they all seem to have one thing in common. An evil woman is somehow responsible for disparity out of her people or in the case of this film, her own daughter. She has sentenced the princess to death because she believes that if her daughter outlives her, their kingdom will be destroyed. So the young heroine becomes the subject of Hercules and his son's efforts to rescue her from certain death, which means fighting a horny rubber alligator and using a sling to kill the guards who are preparing to test the princess off a cliff. Reg Park takes on the role of the Greek hero in this film, which opens with very attractive credits of suppose Greek artwork which actually looks more Egyptian. Even though the names of the Queens change from film to film, their motivations are pretty much all the same, and the characterizations are one-dimensional and without any sort of variation. The dubbing is better than normal in the print that I saw, but the film remains more chatty in its emphasis to attempt a more solid story. Lacking in action for the most part, this is deadly dull in many moments, and ultimately this leads it to be quite tedious and predictable.

This is definitely a better movie than a lot of other Italian Hercules productions out there. Not that the quality of this movie is being exceptionally high though. It still is a movie that brings some nice entertainment, no matter how ridicules the movie often gets.This was the first time that British Reg Park took on the Hercules role. Park was a multiple time Mr. Universe champion, just like Steve Reeves, who had played the character of Hercules in previous movie productions. His physique of course definitely helped him getting these sort of roles. His career also ended pretty soon after he started to age, like often happens to these types of 'actors'.Like all these sort of Italian swords and sandals productions, it's a very cheap and often laughable looking movie, even though the movie is also being grand to look at with its enormous and colorful sets. The movie does use some silly early effects, though you just can not accuse this movie of not being creative. It just doesn't always works in the movie its own advantage.I of course couldn't care less about the story of the movie and all that seemed to matter was that the movie. All that seems to matter for this movie is that it's being entertaining. The movie does really bring some silly fun, also long as you of course don't except a movie with class or of a very high quality.A better movie than most other Italian Hercules productions and also certainly way better than its current reputation and rating.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

An almost Z grade mythological adventure/ action flick, HERCULES … tells the story of the Theban hero's fight with the malefic queen of Atlantis, the worshiper of dark divinities. Some accent is put on Hercules' positive and luminous religiosity. The flick begins as an expedition to prevent and counter the attack of an yet unknown threat overseas (Hercules is kidnapped by his king, and the hero's son joins the expedition of his own initiative) and continues with the shipwreck and the encounter with the Atlantis' people—especially their queen. This queen proves to be an eugenicist and the owner of a secret army of killing machines that look like the Nazis. While Hercules' relation with his father Zevs is constantly emphasized, the _proto—Nazi's queen deeds are reported to her religious beliefs—the cult of Zevs' father, the ancient, dethroned Uranus. The flick is, as a matter of fact, HERCULES MEETS THE QUEEN OF ATLANTIS,or the secret army of Atlantis' Queen, etc.. Hercules destroys, against warnings, Uranus' sanctuary, and so brings the destruction of the continent. We do not find out why did he imagine he could destroy the hidden sanctuary without endangering the whole continent—as warned by Uranus' priest (a man that nevertheless is ambivalent and offers the Theban his complicity, revealing him the secret of the Uranus' cult).Two scenes at least are worthy of mention—Hercules' fight with Protheus ,when the Theban rescues a girlie (the very daughter of Atlantis' queen);--and the place, the camp where the queen keeps prisoners the victims of her experiments towards forging a new, _undefeatable race; this place reminded me of the old European westerns and of one of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN's sequels.The death of the ancient commercial European cinema is an awful fact. Why did these tidal waves of fun get lost?From my youngest days, and with the surest taste, I have always opted for the European amusements—whether Leone's _peplum or Sandokan. When I want to bring homage to these old European adventure films ,I see something like this HERCULES ….From many less than enthusiastic comments, I guess that we the dedicated fans of such things are rather few. A wonderful sense of fun and cheerfulness existed in these old flicks.From the perfect coincidence of the viewer's expectations and the movies' offer, one can deduce that their look, flair and gusto is far from being a string of mistakes and flaws now apparently saved by the camp value—but that such flicks conform deliberately to a norm ,to an idea of fun. This HERCULES … is very much a comedy—intentionally so—an old comedy, extremely likable. To me, it's a cult film also.What about its ingenuous, fancy surrealism? If it's not consciously deliberate, it's not unwilling either. These forms of popular amusement spontaneously found veins of surreal, bizarre and unusual imagination. Those who filmed these flicks did not know they made surrealism of a kind—yet they knew what they were for. The best part of this aim of theirs is what we call surrealism. The valuable part of everything is this genuine, spontaneous and straight aiming—the sense of fun implied became so unusual that it takes a kind of natural sophistication to accept these as great fun—which is what they genuinely are. (To my tastes, in the mythological B genre these attempts succeeded way better than in, say, the horror, the Italian camp horror of the '60s.) I did not find it unintentionally funny, as kids write, but intensely weird. In cinema, it is a world.Like some of the last Italian westerns of the great era, like THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN' s weird sequels, HERCULE … is somehow disabused and decadent, being not so much playful—but experimental. Some limits are here explored and pushed. Depending on your taste, these mindless explorations might seem fascinating. They are narrative experiments in formlessness. This is fascinating—and also strongly decadent. Obviously no considerable audience success could be targeted this way. Renouncing all _honorability, these films of the '60s (and '70s) gave shape to a new blooming of a genuine cinematographic anarchism and decadent appeal—after the incredibly refined comedies of the silent movies. This was avant—guard—without the pretensions and stuff …. And there is a very sad aspect—their ambiguity played a trick on the incompetent minority audiences. In most cases, such experiments found small minorities of buffs so stupid that were unable to notice what was wrong and imbecile with some of these flicks. There are buffs who believe these outings are good or valid in a Ford/ Hawks/ Wyler way—i.e., they do not notice the difference. For such people, HERCULE … of this extravaganza is a smaller GLADIATOR, SPARTACUS or BEN—HUR. This is chilling—this confusion.We are often hypocrites and philistines—we say, hypocritically—this flick gave me nothing except compact fine pleasure—it has nothing to offer except some huge pleasure—I have did this about a Tarantino's movie, and about BASIC INSTINCT as well ….Well,MUTATIS MUTANDIS.