Today’s comic-book superheroes are the modern equivalent of Greek Gods, so why not a swords-and-loincloths bedecked origin story for the nattily clad Batmans, Spider-Mans and X-Men now conquering our screens?
Only Hercules is also an origin story unto itself – based on the Radical Comics title, it offers the truth behind the myth by presenting the fashioning of a warrior who, for all his strength and courage, is flesh and blood.
‘Brett Ratner’s Hercules’ are words to strike fear into the bravest of hearts but this is more sly and sprightly than we had any right to expect. Maintaining a neat balance of camp and solemnity, it sees Hercules and his band of trusted allies (Rufus Sewell, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Ian McShane, Askel Hennie) rattle through Greece on the kind of odyssey Homer might have scribbled if he had ADD, stopping off en route for a training montage as Hercules whips Cotys’ depleted army of farmers into shape, and engaging in three big battles – dynamic flurries of swords, shields, arrows, scythes, axes, whips, clubs and spears.
Nekki has announced that the forthcoming gun fu game, SPINE, will receive a movie adaptation to expand the franchise.
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