The fact that my life and exploits of my relatives have always amused and annoyed me, and this retelling about my baby brother, well, he's over 2200 years old now, is not among the best. I mean, Steve Reeves gave him presence, Sorbo gave him character and even Ferrigno showed his power, Paul Telfer touches on his humanity as he meanders through his scenes spouting lines and exorcising character. The movie is basically a large budget wasted on a high school play. The stories are horribly and shockingly rewritten, to the point of practically being insulting. It tries to tell the untold story of Hercules never before depicted, but it makes up a new far-fetched version. This isn't so much a biography as a character assassination confusing the Sphinx with the Nemean Lion and the Harpies with the Stymphalian birds. I'd have expected much more from Halmi and Pogue. It depicts Amphitryon as a noble man, but Alcmene is shrewish, short-tempered and manipulative. Lovely Leelee Sobieski plays Deianeira, who is now over-joyed to hear she is now a nymph and not just a Calydonian princess annoyed by the fact she broke up her own marriage. The movie is a horribly condensed version of the true story, merging the details and confusing the motivations, quite insulting to the those purists who religiously follow the "myths" we left behind. There is very little basis on the actual story, just a half-twisted loyalty. Paul Telfer looks a bit like Tom Welling, the actor playing that Kryptonian character, and obviously relishes in the role. The cast places much effort in their roles, but all too often chewing the scenery and not once questioning this retelling. The true story is much more better than retelling it. Children and descendants, if you want to know about my baby brother, watch the "Legendary Journeys." He does and he gets a kick out of them, but he can only muster a few minutes of this film before shattering the picture screen with a beer bottle!

Yet another attempt to film the might Hercules (the Roman name; his original Greek name was "Herakles" but "Hercules" sounds better), here played as an affable lug by Paul Telfer.Hercules is unwontedly born to Queen Elizabeth Perkins after she is raped by who she thinks is Zeus but is really the Earth giant Anteous (I know it's stupid). His step-father King Timothy Dalton thinks he's a good kid, just needs a little help being pushed in the right direction. As a youth Hercules has a thing for Megara (Leanna Walsman) and one night while she appears to be a bit drunk she sleeps with him and later gives birth to triplet boys, but rather than take responsibility for her own part in the naughty behavior Megara reveals her true bitch colors and vindictively hates Hercules for the rest of her life and even gets the sons to hate him as well. Queen Liz then gets Meg to trick Hercules into killing his sons, thus ending their marriage that was bestowed upon Hercules as a reward for killing the Hydra, which leads to 5 of the 12 labors that Hercules performed, but they're all altered or beefed up in some way. Hercules even falls in love with a sturdy wood nymph who gives birth to his other son, whom he later tries to promise to Meg's daughter Iole. Of course, Queen Liz has her own plans and tries to back stab Meg, which Meg finds out about so she turns the tables and tricks Meg into killing her own preferred son Iphicles in a sacrifice and, well, it all gets messy from there and ends in a huge brawl.Not completely unwatchable, with great scenery and all, but they made one big mistake - Hercules was the son of ZEUS, King of the Gods and no other. Everyone knows that; even little kids know that. So after all the big proclamation of this being the truest, purest interpretation of Hercules on screen they go and screw up his biological parentage. They might as well say Superman came from Mars instead of Krypton.Well, watch and judge for yourself.

I saw this advertised as "featuring Sean Astin", and I watched it *for* Sean Astin. I was quite disappointed, and in fact, felt rather embarrassed on his behalf, that he took this role at all, because compared to the character of Sam Gamgee, Linus as faithful servant to Hercules is pitiful. Surely Astin didn't do it for the money? Maybe he did it to work in New Zealand again, who knows.The second-saddest thing, I felt, was the CGI. I was mostly impressed by the rendering of the centaur, but where young Hercules lifts the white colt... urrrgh. And the deer looked like claymation. Horrendous.Most of the characters, though, were interesting to look at. Megara was gorgeous and I found no fault with her (other than being a scheming bitch, of course). But as to why she seduces Hercules then runs off afterwards remains a mystery to me.I consider this, the 3-hour version, a useful diversion from a lackluster Friday night, but I wouldn't bother to see it again.

My guess would be this was originally going to be at least two parts, and thus at least a quarter longer, because otherwise how can one explain its confused, abbreviated storyline. I was never completely lost, but I was often partially lost and usually unclear on character motivation. The movie feels as though joining plot points were dropped to squeeze it into its time slot.If it were longer, it might make more sense, but it still wouldn't be much good. The movie's most interesting idea is of the war between Zeus and Hera as being a war between the male and female, but the movie drops the ball on this, making Hera's followers fairly horrible while not being clear on what Zeus' followers do or believe. The movie is also interesting because you don't see the gods and there's no real certainty that they exist. So it's got a couple of intriguing ideas, but it doesn't do anything useful with them.Bad dialog, cardboard characters, and one interesting scene involving Hercules and his three antagonistic sons. Not unwatchable but also not worth watching.