The Scorpion God
I went to see “Hercules”. In honesty, a significant factor in this decision was my desire to see some manner of worthy successor to “The Scorpion King”. You know what I mean. One that features the apparently inimitable Dwayne Johnson. Among other things. It wasn’t quite that. For one thing, it did that whole thing of deliberately throwing in ambiguity about the more obviously fantastical elements of Hercules’s legend. It wasn’t offensively heavy about that, though. Altogether, I think that the film felt more like a Conan story than anything else. On the other hand, the dude just said that he was split between playing Shazam and Black Adam. That’s basically a choice between Greek and Egyptian flavours of divinely wrought mojo, and now he has experience with both. I’d probably put my favour behind the latter. The whole bit of the ancient foreign conqueror seems to work better with the dude’s complexion and general demeanour than the concept of a suburban kid with god powers. I think that Billy Batson would be closer to the Disney version of Hercules. I should say that that might be my favourite adaptation of the tale, though. At least in cinema. The show was pretty good in its own right too. In either scenario, a solid dose of mythic Dwayne Johnson action seems to be imminent. That’s generally conducive to a good time.
Bonus Question!
Best Hercules outside of cinema? Mmm . . . Greg Pak's.
