I'd love to see a tally of all the taxpayer dollars the "fiscally responsible" conservatives have wasted fighting same-sex marriage. At this point it's like throwing bags of cash at the oncoming tide.

So annoying. It's fine to want to try a new take on a character or story or whatever, but the current trend of "Who can be THE DARKEST/GRITTIEST?" makes me feel like I'm watching a sandpaper competition lit by dying cell phones.

To be fair, if everyone was expecting an awesome Hercules movie where he awesomely fights awesome monsters, the fault lies with the marketing team who cut that trailer.

Samesies. Himself and I walked into it looking forward to a self-aware cheese-fest, and that was exactly what we got. And honestly, anything containing the always delightful but woefully under-utilised Ian McShane gets my stamp of approval.

Unbelievable. How could they possibly imagine that this is what viewers want from a Hercules movie?

I notice Clash of Titans has Zeus and Hades as its two main god stars. Which leads me to think it probably "Christianized" the pantheon such that Zeus was a stand in for god and Hades was a stand in for the devil. This may not be true at all, as I never watched the movie, but a cursory search seems to support it.

Yup, higher class women would not have to go outside to work, so would be pale, in the Iliad Homer's epithet for Andromache is 'pale-skinned' to show her high status.

Not to outdo gingersnap's asshole snarkery, but I remember something about how Hercules's name in Greek "Heracles" could have been evidence that he was based on a real guy. Since his name includes the name of the goddess Hera, which was not a naming convention in Greek Mythology but was a naming convention for Greek…

Shame. I was going to see this one since it looked like a ridiculous early-2000s-style action movie a la The Scorpion King. And if anyone can watch the complete physics-defying absurdity that is the first five minutes of The Scorpion King without laughing, I do not know what it would take to make that person laugh.

I read this entire comment in Eddie Izzard's voice, so thank you for that.

It seems so odd that The Rock would have a bodyguard. How is he not his own bodyguard?

If you want a chick with a sword, stick with Game of Thrones. That fight Brienne of Tarth has with The Hound was the best thing about the fourth season, hands down. Swords, fists, teeth, feet—just ass kicking. But there was also Yara Greyjoy slitting throats and Arya being a bit psycho with Needle, too.

FUCK YOU, BRETT RATNER. I STILL HAVE NOT FORGIVEN YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO THE X-MEN IN X3: X-MEN UNITED. A MOVIE THAT WAS SO BAD THEY HAD TO DO TIME TRAVEL IN ANOTHER MOVIE JUST TO FIX THE FRANCHISE.

FUCKING BRETT RATNER.

"He's not the strongest (that's Atlas), or the most cerebral (Odysseus, imo), or the #1 boner-inducer (Achilles, duh)."

I bet you're a blast at parties.

I thought Hercules was just the Roman name for Heracles? Didn't they just go Oh, these gods are good. better than the ones we've got. "Cause the Roman gods before that were kind of crap, you know – Jeff, the god of biscuits. And Simon, the god of hairdos. And uh, you know, they had the god of war, the god of thunder,…

Yeah, like, at the end he basically pushes a 10-story building over with his muscles and then McShane is immediately like, "Is he REALLY a demigod!!?!?!? WE MAY NEVER KNOW." Are you sure? Are you sure we don't know?

Except of course that 9/10 times they use Hercules' Roman name, while keeping everyone else's Greek. As they did in this film. And Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. And the Disney movie. So I'm not sure who didn't do their research here.

All part of the gritty realism trend in movies. Take fantastical stories and remove all the magic, mystery and/or cheesiness to make it palatable to non-nerds. Sad.

Lindy, you've summed up perfectly the feelings of sadness i have about this movie. I read the review over at i09 and this gif pretty much covers how i felt before i read it and me afterwards