Project Terrible: Little Hercules (2009)

Um, okay. This movie is obviously not my usual fare, but as Project Terrible demands it, I had to watch this atrocious kid movie given to me by Thomas D over at Cinema Gonzo. I'm all for some kick ass Roman mythology, don't get me wrong, but Hulk Hogan as Zeus? In a family movie that was originally in 3D? I'm already pissed off.

Hercules, the 12-year-old half-god half-mortal son of Zeus, wants to get off Mount Olympus for a while and check out what it's like to be a mortal. Zeus is mad about this, but still tries to help him in his journey, and Hera, as mythology tells us, thwarts him at every turn, trying to banish Hercules from Mount Olympus forever. Hercules befriends a boy named Curtis ("Little C") and tries to make a name for himself in the school's athletics department, competing in several Olympic-like events.

Little Hercules is played by Richard Sandrak, a young man known throughout the world for being one of the youngest bodybuilders. In fact, I think his real nickname is actually "Little Hercules." I saw this kid on Ripley's Believe It or Not and he is more ripped than I will ever be, I'm sad to say. Other actors in this hot mess include the aforementioned Hulk Hogan as Zeus, whose overacting should be considered a felony; Elliot Gould as Socrates, who is usually a fine character actor but not in this garbage; and even Judd Nelson, whose dishwater acting should also be considered a felony. Also, the chick playing Hera has the most annoying accent I have ever heard.

Seriously, this is the kind of "acting" and action that you rarely see outside of middle school or even elementary school plays. All the actors' gestures, the fight sequences... they were all half-assed, like you could tell that they didn't even care about making their actions realistic or believable. Yes, the whole plot of the movie is supposed to be unbelievable - based on mythology and all that - but there had to have been a better way for them to pull this off.

I think the mythology part was actually fairly accurate so that's one point for the movie. The thing I found most annoying though was that when Hercules arrives in Burbank, California after skateboarding down from Mount Olympus on his shield (I SWEAR TO GOSH, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS), and tells people that he is Hercules, son of Zeus, from Mount Olympus and all that - some of the people seem to have no knowledge of the legend of Hercules at all. They're just all, "Oh hi, Hercules," like it's only a slightly weird name to have. I'm pretty sure that most everyone in the world, young and old, at least know the basic story of Hercules. Seriously.

The production value is just awful throughout. It looks like there was a lot of green screen work for the scenes of Zeus and Hera on Mount Olympus and it's terrible! The whole area is blindingly white and shiny and doesn't look the least bit real. When Zeus and this other big guy get into a "fight of the Gods!", Zeus is throwing these ridiculous looking lightning bolts at the guy that are so amateurishly done. Then they have another fight later on in "Babylon," which looks exactly like one of the fighting areas from Mortal Kombat. Probably the worst part was when Zeus appeared to Hercules in the water of the toilet bowl at Curtis's house. THE TOILET. My head hurts.

Okay, that's enough talking about Little Hercules. You all aren't going to watch it, and I'm going to try to forget that I ever did. This was obviously a movie made just to showcase the famous bodybuilder kid and nothing more. I don't think kids would even enjoy this movie.