Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action, adventure,
fantasy film from 2014, titled Hercules. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In 358 BC, on the Macedonian Coast in Northern Greece, storyteller Iolaus of Athens has been
captured by pirates and is trying to buy time by telling them the legend of his uncle Hercules.
His father was Zeus, king of the gods, but his mother was Alcmene, a mortal woman. Zeus' queen,
Hera, saw the bastard these two had together as an insult and tried to kill him, but Hercules
took after his father and was almost unbeatable. Once he reached manhood, the gods commanded him to
perform Twelve Labours, and if he could complete them all and survive, Hera would let him live
in peace. He fought powerful monsters like the hydra, the erymanthean boar, and the Nemean lion,
whose hide was so tough no weapon could penetrate it, so Hercules beat it with his bare hands.
The pirates aren't impressed by Iolaus' story, not believing a word of what he says.
But at that moment, Hercules arrives to rescue him, wearing the lion's hide on his head.
The pirates aren't scared because there are forty of them, but numbers are pointless:
Hercules can fight with multiple men at the same time, and besides, he isn't alone:
his team has come with him. There's the seer Amphiaraus of Argos, the thief Autolycus of
Sparta, the feral warrior Tydeus of Thebes and the Amazon archer Atalanta of Scythia.
Together, this group of mercenaries easily defeats the pirates and rescues Iolaus.
After counting the heads for which they will be paid, Autolycus tells Iolaus he must exaggerate
the story of Hercules more so people will believe it, while Amphiaraus receives a vision from the
flames: they say a lion and a crow will form a strange alliance and fight across a sea of bodies.
Sometime later, the party goes to a tavern to celebrate their victory. Hercules tells
Autolycus about wanting to leave for the lands beyond the seas so he can finally find peace,
taking Tydeus with him because he is the only one that can control his rage. Suddenly, the tavern
falls silent when a group of soldiers enter the place and bring with them Princess Ergenia of
Thrace, who asks Hercules and his team to join her at the palace to hear her father's proposal,
promising a hefty payment in gold. Iolaus notices the guards' shields have a raven on them,
and since Hercules' symbol is a lion, this would match Amphiaraus' prophecy. When they arrive at
the palace, Hercules can't help seeing a large group of refugees behind the walls.
They're welcomed by General Sitacles, leader of the Thracian army, who doesn't look very happy
about Hercules' presence, and Ergenia's son Arius, who is a big fan of him and knows all his stories.
As they climb the stairs on their way inside, Hercules remembers an incident three years ago,
when he killed a Hydra, which was just a bunch of men wearing lizard-like helmets,
for King Eurystheus of Athens, who declares him a hero in front of a huge crowd chanting his name.
The memory suddenly turns sour when it flashes images of his wife and kids getting murdered,
and Hercules tries his best to ignore it and concentrate on the present.
The party meets with Lord Cotys, king of Thrace, who teases Amphiaraus for not being able to see
much of the future except his own death and judges Atalanta's skills based on her gender, but she
proves him wrong pretty quickly by shooting the helmets off the guards' hands. He invites them to
have dinner with them and explains their troubles: the country is in the middle of a civil war with
a bloodthirsty warlord called Rhesus, who is believed to have an army of centaurs. Cotys shows
Hercules all the refugees that arrive every day after Rhesus burns their villages, and comments
on the fact he's lost most of his soldiers and his current army is formed by farmers. Between
him and his daughter, they give Hercules a speech about bringing peace to the country that helps
convince him to accept the job. The following day, Hercules and his team begin training the
farmers-turned-soldiers, starting by testing their shield wall, which doesn't hold well.
Some hours later, Hercules meets with Cotys again, who has information about Rhesus thanks to one of
his scouts, Phineas. The tyrant will be attacking the Bessi tribe in Central Thrace within six days,
and Cotys wants to take the chance to march and stop him there before he goes any farther.
Hercules disapproves of the idea, pointing out the army needs more time to train,
but Cotys doesn't listen and tells him to get ready because they'll be marching the next day.
Later in the evening, after helping Atalanta get rid of Sitacles' unwanted attention,
Hercules notices Arius sneaking around to see Tydeus sleeping chained to a chariot and almost
hurting him when he comes closer. Hercules takes the kid out of there and explains that
Tydeus was born in war and when he found him, he was more animal than human. He saw something
that traumatized him so deeply that he now never speaks at all and relives his trauma every night,
but Hercules still considers him his most loyal warrior. Afterward, he takes the Arius
back to Ergenia, who is working at the hospice - after they lost so many physicians, she taught
herself the art of healing to be able to help in some way. Before leaving, Hercules gifts Arius
the Nemean lion's tooth, implying it should've been a gift for his own children. The next day,
the army gets ready to march, and Hercules finds Iolaus hidden among the soldiers,
intending to fight too. He reminds him he's a storyteller and not a warrior before sending him
to the chariot with Cotys, and together, they all leave for Bessi. When they make it to the village
however, they discover it is too late: Rhesus had already been there and destroyed it all,
and the sea of bodies matches Amphiaraus' vision. Something is strange though: while some of the
bodies have been clearly rotting for days, there are others on the ground that are still fresh.
These bodies are the ones that suddenly wake up and attack them because this has been a trap all
along. Thinking the Bessi tribe is under the control of Rhesus, Hercules calls for a shield
wall to form around Cotys while he and his team fight. The tribe leader wants to challenge him
directly, so to create an illusion Iolaus can take advantage of with his storytelling, Hercules
smoothly breaks the tip of one of Atalanta's arrows, and when the tribe leader comes closer,
he stabs him on the forehead with it, making it seem as if he had killed him with just a
punch - the army finds this incredibly inspiring and makes them believe the gods are on their side.
The real battle begins then. Hercules' team kills as many tribesmen as possible, but there are too
many of them and they soon breach the shield wall. They come up with a simple plan: Hercules
and Amphiaraus retrieve their chariots and start driving them in circles around the shield wall,
pushing and killing the tribesmen out of the way. The remaining soldiers use this chance to charge,
but the tribesmen recognize a defeat when they see it and run away. Rhesus is nowhere in sight,
although a strangely shaped figure can be seen watching from afar. Hercules tells Cotys that
losing half his army is as much his fault as it is Rhesus' because he did warn him about the farmers
not being ready to right yet, and Cotys accepts giving him more time to spend training. Meanwhile,
General Sitacles wants to kill Phineas for having guided them into a trap, but Autolycus stops him
and announces he'll be in charge of scouts from now on, although he does threaten Phineas and
warns him not to make another mistake. Moments later, Princess Ergenia arrives with the healers,
and she's taken to Hercules' private tent so nobody can see he's bleeding like a mere mortal
from an injury he got during battle. After she leaves him to rest, Hercules dreams of
an old memory: it shows the bodies of his wife and children, his hands covered with blood,
and King Eurystheus exiling him out of the country instead of executing him so he can
forever live with the guilt of having killed his family. He wakes up from this nightmare
when he hears some children giggling, and when he enters the forest to investigate, he finds his
dead family among the bodies of the tribesmen. Eating them is a three-headed dog, Cerberus,
and Hercules gets ready to fight it, but Tydeus appears behind him and brings him back to reality,
making him realize he's been imagining things. In the morning, Amphiaraus immediately knows what's
happened to him because it's not the first time, and he advises Hercules he needs to finish this
final labor and confront the beast to find peace. But Hercules thinks he's just going mad. While the
two men are busy talking by themselves, Princess Ergenia approaches the rest of the team to get
the truth behind the rumors. They explain to her that nobody knows the truth, they found Hercules
one day alone with the bodies of his family surrounding him, but he remembers nothing. In
each of his adventures, he would find one of the members of his team and show compassion for them,
earning their loyalty. He was so good at what he did, nobody could believe he could be mortal,
and the team simply decided to play along the stories to help them get jobs. They think that
what happened to him was probably the Blood Rage, a common affliction that clouds the minds of
warriors. From then on, Hercules and the team put Cotys' army under a very strict training routine.
They're given armor and weapons that copy Hercules' and taught the arts of the lance,
bow and arrow, sword, hand to hand combat, and eventually, they manage to form a shield wall that
Tydeus can't break. All the while, Iolaus watches from a hidden spot, training along in secret. One
day, Phineas comes back with new intel: Rhesus is near Mount Asticus with an army of centaurs,
and Hercules wants to fight him there before he advances farther into their territory.
It may be dangerous because the forest can slow down the chariots, but he has a plan.
Amphiaraus sadly can't help by telling them if they win or not since he can't see that,
but he does know he's going to die in a week. Some days later, once the army is ready to fight,
they arrive at Mount Asticus yet find no enemy camp. The enemy is there though,
Rhesus' army appears on the horizon and as they come closer, they discover they aren't centaurs,
just a group of men on horses creating an optical illusion by staying against the sun. Rhesus comes
to talk to Cotys with Phineas by his side, who has actually been working for the enemy all along.
Cotys is asked to surrender but he refuses, and both sides get ready to engage in battle.
Cotys' army puts up the shield wall and releases the flanks, but the first ones to attack are
actually Atalanta and her archers, who suddenly appear on chariots from the forest, ambushing the
enemy when they almost reach their side. When arrows on fire are shot, Amphiaraus opens his
arms, ready to accept his fate, but somehow not a single one manages to hit him. The battle is
long and arduous - Rhesus' army may be bigger, but Hercules' soldiers have a better formation,
and soon they are overpowering the enemy. Rhesus' soldiers begin running away but he decides to stay
and challenge Hercules directly, which proves to be a bad idea: Hercules easily grabs his
horse and throws both of them to the floor with one swift movement. Sometime later, when they
return to the palace with Rhesus in chains, Cotys begins humiliating him in front of his people,
but Hercules takes pity on him and helps him keep going. As they walk together, Rhesus tries to
explain to him that Cotys is actually a tyrant and it wasn't his men who burned all those villages,
it was Cotys. During the celebratory banquet, Rhesus is chained to two columns to be displayed
as a trophy, and Princess Eregenia tries to bring him water, but Cotys won't allow it.
Then it's time for his coronation, because now that Thrace isn't divided anymore, Cotys is the
king of it all. When Princess Ergenia leaves the room after Rhesus calls out Cotys again, Hercules
gets suspicious and follows her, demanding her to share what she knows. She admits Rhesus is saying
the truth, it was Cotys who started this war after he poisoned her husband, the actual king,
to take his place. However, she didn't play along because she approves of her father's actions,
she did it because Cotys threatened to kill her child if she tried to rebel.
Ergenia tries to convince Hercules to take Arius with him when they leave, but Hercules refuses
right before they're found by General Sitacles, who tells him Cotys is looking for him. Hercules
goes to confront Cotys, calling him out for betraying him, but Cotys finds it laughable that
mercenaries that will do anything for gold have suddenly grown a conscience. He admits wanting to
have his own empire and invites Hercules to lead his army, but since he turns the offer down, he
pays him and his team what they agreed on before kicking them out. When they reach their chariots,
Hercules gives his money to Autolycus because he wants to stay and save Thrace. He doesn't expect
the team to stay with him and allows them all to leave with their reward and have a good life,
but Atalanta reminds him they don't follow him because they feel they owe him anything,
they follow him because they are a family. The whole team decides to stay and fight except for
Autolycus, who leaves with all the gold after calling them crazy. The party easily sneaks back
into the palace, but General Sitacles is waiting for them and surrounds them with his soldiers.
After making them drop their weapons, he also tells Cotys that he's heard Ergenia conspiring
with Hercules to take Arius away from him. Cotys takes the kid from Ergenia as she is captured by
the soldiers, and Arius tries to go to Hercules for help, secretly giving him back the lion's
tooth before Cotys drags him back by the hair. Hercules is knocked unconscious while trying to
save the child and he wakes a few hours later, chained to a wall and seeing Cerberus in front
of him. As his vision slowly clears, he realizes it's actually three wolves, and they look familiar
to him. They belong to King Eurystheus, who is now entering the area together with Cotys because
they've been working together all this time to rule the entirety of Greece together. After seeing
all his friends locked in cages around him, Hercules slowly recovers his memory: Cerberus
has always been an illusion of his mind, what he saw that night three years ago were the wolves,
who attacked his family after Eurystheus put a sedative in his drink so he couldn't do anything.
Eurystheus admits this is true, and he did it because he hadn't liked the way his people had
called out Hercules' name louder than his as if he was some sort of god - this could be a threat to
his power, and he had to be eliminated. A man with ambition can be bought, but someone like Hercules,
who wants nothing, is too dangerous. Cotys makes his soldiers take Ergenia out of her cage to be
executed, and Hercules feels useless for only being able to watch. However, when Amphiaraus
reminds him they all believe in him and he should believe in himself too, Hercules remembers who
he is and summons all his strength to rip off the chains from the wall and go save Ergenia.
Cotys and the others rush out of the room and let the wolves take care of him while Ergenia
uses the ax she was about to be executed with to open the doors to the cages. The wolves give
Hercules quite a fight, biting him and wounding him on various parts of his body, but one by one,
Hercules manages to overpower them and throw them away, stabbing the last one with the lion's tooth.
His final labor is finally complete. Ergenia frees the whole party and they grab some weapons
the soldiers left behind while Hercules shows his strength again by lifting a metal door that allows
them to escape the dungeon. As they make their way upstairs, soldiers keep trying to stop them,
but they have no issues fighting back and making their way through. When a lance on fire is thrown
at them, Amphiaraus once again thinks his time has come and opens his arms to receive his fate,
but Hercules grabs it and kills a soldier with it, saving his old friend. While the party takes care
of the remaining soldiers, Hercules goes after Eurystheus, who starts making a bunch of excuses
for what happened to Hercules' family, like saying he had been controlled by Cotys. He also tries to
order him around as a king and even offers him money, but Hercules doesn't care about any of
that: he grabs Eurystheus by his neck, throws him on the throne, and stabs him with his own dagger,
finally getting revenge for his family. Now he can move on and find peace after all this is over.
His thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a whip around his neck: it's Sitacles,
who throws Hercules on the floor and gets ready to kill him only for him to end up stabbed instead
when Iolaus catches by surprise from behind. After finally calling his nephew a warrior,
the two of them rejoin the party, which has rescued Rhesus, and together they leave the
palace, freezing as soon as they see Cotys waiting for them with his army. Arius is being held by a
soldier as a hostage, and Cotys threatens to kill him if Hercules doesn't surrender.
All of the sudden, the soldier falls dead because of a knife thrown at him:
it's Autolycus, who has come back to help. Now free, Arius runs towards his mother as another
battle begins, and Tydeus jumps in to protect him from the incoming arrows. Arius safely joins them,
and Tydeus manages to kill most of the archers but also is hit with a bunch of arrows in return.
While the others knock over the braziers to create a wall of fire between them and Cotys' army,
Hercules picks up Tydeus and watches him die after he says the only word he's ever spoken
in his life: Hercules' name. Cotys' army starts charging after most of the flames have died down,
and Hercules sees only one way to stop him: using his extraordinary strength once again,
he pushes a giant statue of Hera off its base, which breaks into hundreds of pieces that proceed
to crush many soldiers and push Cotys into the abyss. With their king dead, one by one the
soldiers begin kneeling for Hercules and chanting his name, accepting him as their new leader.