BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

lemon_magic Well.Hercules style movies are normally, by convention, pretty silly and lightweight, but this one is juvenile and stupid and cheesy in a way that takes the genre to new depths. Ever since I saw "Bloody Pit Of Horror", I've had a soft spot for Hargitay, but he and Mansfield (and, let's be fair,everyone else) are pretty bad here. Not horrible, mind you - the casting leans toward attractive and interesting looking people, and everyone in the cast acts at about the same level - but pretty bad.In Hargitay's case, especially, the vocals (dubbing?) just sucks. It's as if they used Tommy Wiseau (the epically awful actor from "The Room") to utter his lines, and Tommy had a bad migraine that week and couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what he was saying. Combine that with Hargitay's perpetually dopey, yearning expression and you have a screen portrayal that's at the opposite end of the scale from the gravitas and dignity you'd get from someone like Steve Reeves or Reg Park.And Hargitay's blocking and fight choreography are off. For a strong man and body builder, Hargitay seems stiff, awkward and unconvincing. I know he can do better than this because he moved like a different person entirely in "Bloody Pit". The fight with the Hydra in the middle of the film is an especially egregious example of this - I've seen fights staged better at my local community theater productions. Mansfield - well, I 've read that she was actually an intelligent and multifaceted person, but you'd never guess that from her role here. She stands around and pulls various tragic faces and, well, juts a lot. Adding insult to injury is a screenplay that calls for the murder of Hercule's innocent wife in the first 5 minutes of the film, and then has the character (and the movie) forget all about her immediately afterwards. Seriously, she's never mentioned again. And there's a "plot" against Hercules that can only succeed if all the characters display less mental acuity than the girls in a junior high locker room. Which they do. Oh, and there's a "trial" against the Queen that proves her innocence when Hercules throws 4 axes at her...and succeeds in MISSing her on purpose instead of hitting her. (You'd think that missing a woman who occupies less than 30% of a target area would be ridiculously easy for a demi-god and professional warrior, but here the movie acts as if it's a heroic miracle). Hmmm, and the central plot point of the movie - where the queen of the Amazons decides to seduce our hero - just marks time for 20 minutes until Herc's shield bearer finds him and then he basically walks away without doing anything heroic whatsoever. (The queen gets killed by a tree. Really). Boy.Take my advice and watch the Reeves or Parks or even Gordon Scott Hercules movies again, instead.

TxMike I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies, with the title "Hercules vs The Hydra." I was curious for several reasons, and two of the biggest are because of Jayne Mansfield. Jayne Mansfield was probably most noted for her very large breasts which when displayed next to actresses of "normal" endowment actually makes those actresses look flat chested. But as large as they were, Jane carried them very well. And, while she was often considered a "dumb blonde" she in fact was very smart, and was a fine actress. I remember when she died, in 1967, in a car wreck in Louisiana, not very far at all from where I was working on a post-graduate summer Chemistry project.In this movie Jayne Mansfield is dark-haired Queen Deianira. When her husband, the King, is killed she becomes the sole ruler of the small kingdom. From some other battles with his people, Mickey Hargitay (who in real life was Mansfield's actual husband) plays the part of Hercules , seeking justice. Massimo Serato is the traitor Licos , a member of the King's own inner circle, he had the King killed so that, once he romanced Deianira and married her, the kingdom would be his. But after a side trip, and an encounter with the Hydra, plus an encounter with an Amazon who made herself look like Deianira (Mansfield also played the seductress, Hippolyta, with red hair) to entrap Hercules, he made it back to Deianira and helped defeat the traitor Licos. The ending was like an American Western, with Hercules and Deinira on a horse, riding into the sunset with lush music playing. By today's standards this is not a good movie at all, the sets looks fake, most of the action looks amateurish, as well as most of the acting. But it is a good watch for Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, icons of a bygone era, plus it shows how far production values have come in 50+ years.

gavin6942 Hercules (Mickey Hargitay) must save his true love (Jayne Mansfield) from an evil queen.First of all, that plot really has very little to do with the film. More or less nothing. Hercules is distracted from his love by the queen of the Amazons... but this is really just a subplot. But anyway, the hydra is awesome in its own silly way and these are awesome costumes. Everything about this film is awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I am using that word repeatedly on purpose, because no other word sums this up.Yeah, it may be more than a bit cheesy, but the Italians had a way of taking the Hercules story and running with it. Mario Bava did, I think even Lucio Fulci did it. Why not Bragaglia? Luca Palmieri is my go-to source for Italian film reviews. All he has to say about this one is that Mansfield is "super-shapely". Great analysis, Luca.(Upon my second viewing of the film, the cheesiness sort of outweighed the awesome. But it would not be prudent to change the review now just because my opinion changed somewhat, would it?)

Tails-5 The sound is terrible! Not until Dr. Zhivago did I ever hear such a hellishly awful soundtrack! Anyway, Jayne Mansfield plays a back-to-back role as a queen of Greece (in a red wig) and an evil Amazon queen (in a black wig.) Mickey Hargitay plays the burly demigod Hercules, who must save the good Jayne from the evil Jayne. Meanwhile, the villagers act like babbling simps. Overall I didn't care for it.