Hercules

Okay, so yeah, the new Hercules was seriously fun as hell.

I had a feeling that this would be a pretty fun flick from the trailers alone, which saw The Rock comically screaming "I AM HERCULES!" in an over-the-top manner. In fact, the worst (or best?) instance of this was when a friend and I saw Noah earlier this year, in which this trailer acted as the lead in to our movie, and we were left in absolute hysterics during Noah's quiet opening, as the trailer for Hercules and that line in particular continued to linger fresh in mind. But the thing is, fun as the trailers looked, they don't even scratch the surface to just how much fun this movie actually is.

For one thing, without giving away too much, this movie actually gives a pretty different take on mythology behind the Hercules legend, and one that continues to be interesting all throughout. In fact, I was pretty surprised to find that almost the entirety of the footage from the trailers only makes up maybe the first five minutes of this thing. They really don't give away anything in the marketing, which makes for an especially pleasant experience, as you'll find you really aren't quite so sure what you've gotten yourself into relatively early on.

But what you've gotten yourself into, thankfully, turns out to be a blast from start to finish. The ever increasingly over-the-top action is simply awesome and exciting throughout, and in classic action movie fashion, our heroes spew out some absolutely epic one liners at every turn.

And I found I really enjoyed the cast of characters we come to follow, cliche as they may be at times. The Rock does his thing, and he's just as awesome as you'd expect, but who really steals the show here is Ian McShane, whose antics as he embraces his inevitable demise are simply a thing of glory. But in addition to the movie's fresh take on the title character that even pokes fun at other incarnations of the character at times, there are some nice twists and turns to the plot itself, even if it is relatively simple enough for the most part.

Simply put, I wasn't exactly in the best of moods going into this thing, but this movie was just what I needed to lift my spirits. This latest Hercules completely surpassed my every expectation of it, and if you're in the need for just an all around good, fun time at the movies, then I could not recommend this one highly enough.