Hercules In New York Review

Interest: 5/10

Acting: 7/10

Storyline: 6/10

Adventure: 6/10

Fights Guns or otherwise: 10/10

Excitement: 5/10

Funny: 7/10

Nudity: 0/10

Music Score: 5/10

Logic: 7/10

Hercules In New York is a 1970 film stars a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a middle aged Arnold Stang. Run time is one hour and thirty-two minutes. It is considered a Adventure, Family, And Fantasy film. Is it worth a watch? Is it by modern standards still family friendly? Let us find out. One more thing before we go on, if you do watch this film, buy it on Blu-Ray. Why? Because you can hear Young Arnold’s original voice, versus a Dubbed over version, and it is so worth it!

Interest: This movie is moderately interesting. It isn’t a movie that completely sucks you in, but it doesn’t make you want to not watch it either. It has moments of hilarity and interest to make you keep watching, but you also won’t lost anything really of importance if you scroll through Facebook or do something else with it.

Acting: The score, if I could average out everyones ability in this film is above average. That being said, Young Arnold’s (Credited as Arnold Strong) acting is very sub par in this film. That being said, I’m pretty sure this is his first (Or one of his first) films ever and so it really shows. He was probably just initially casted as a big well physiqued guy, and got a name for himself. He seems very rigid, but does well enough to attempt to keep the train rolling, and his supporting cast typically helps add coal to the fire of the train.

Storyline: The storyline is simple but fun. If you’ve read any ancient Greek stories, this is pretty much just that but on the big screen. Hercules shows off feats of strength and power over pretty much every living thing. Find out the Earth doesn’t revolve around, nor really recognize Gods walking among them for the most part, and that your God Abilities won’t pay bills. It’s that type of thing over and over, and while I do dislike it, it does hit a certain soft spot I have for near cringe worthy corniness.

Adventure: Well there is lot’s of adventure in this movie. I mean assuming that adventure to you is watching a Greek God turn into a man baby that just explores everything and does what he pleases.

Fights Guns or Otherwise: So there are fights and feats of strength constantly. From Discus throwing to fighting a damn bear, there is no shortage of machismo in this flick. And I want to say it over does it, but young Arnold is playing Hercules, so it doesn’t seem so crazy when you remember to put it in that perspective.

Excitement: Now this being said, the machismo doesn’t bring much excitement to the table. And that is bad. It ends up many times, to me at least, make me laugh and scoff at things instead of sitting in awe of it. Now this doesn’t happen every time, but it happens more often than not which is to me a partial shame. That being said, maybe that’s the family part of it, but it just isn’t my bag.

Funny: this is where this movie accelerates for me. It is funny both intentionally and unintentionally. Arnold Stang is a very funny man, and I’m sad to of learned he passed in 2009, but he is pretty fantastic in this movie and really makes this movie a giggly mess, even though it’s with gags we have heard and seen a million times before. The unintentional funny bits happen everywhere because mostly Young Arnold doesn’t know how to act, fights are just hilarious where Young Arnold just throws people around like rag dolls, where he body slams a bear, where he just does some strange things (that I am sure are in the script) and it just seems like an orchestrated mess that is pretty enjoyable.

Nudity: There is no nudity in this film, and it wouldn’t of helped anyway. There’s no real “Skin showing” either, even though we do see some Greek Gods and Goddesses on Mount Olympus, no ones naked or having some crazed Greek or Roman sex party. It’s a normal “Family” movie.

Musical Score: I know what you’re all thinking “Wait this has never been a score before.” Well there is now and will be in every movie review for ambiance, fitting, or overall a fun soundtrack. This soundtrack was honestly not helpful for any real reason besides covering up spots of the film where there really is no noise going on, which is fine, it’s just some more classical instruments playing, to my knowledge, pieces just created for the movie, but it is nothing outstanding or really memorable.

Logic: The logic in the film I think is okay. I think the movies logic is fine, what logic I think is to dense for it’s own good is Young Arnold’s character, Hercules. HE is supposed to be a stubborn, bull headed person, but at one point (SPOILERS!) he loses his divinity and while he may be semi oblivious to it (I mean he realizes he cant lift all the weight ever in the history of ever) he still wants to chase some bad guys on foot that probably have guns. (END SPOILERS!) He is even to oblivious to ask questions about pretty much anything and just assumes with his mighty muscles he shall conquer all. And that is honestly where I can’t be immersed into this and just let the movie do its thing.

So do I suggest watching this movie? Not alone, this movie is best watched with friends, some adult beverages, a pizza and making fun of it all the way through. If you are watching everything Arnold Schwarzenegger has ever done, then sure, I mean it was his first film after all. Otherwise I’d say this is pretty much forgettable for most people. All in all the movie rated a 58% out of 100%. This isn’t the worst film I’ve watched, but unless some friends and I want to rag on a movie, I won’t watch this for a long while on my own.

List of movies in order I plan to review sometime soon:

Hercules Unchained

Texas Terror

A Yank in Libya

Brigsby Bear

Metropolis

Hercules and the captive women

Black Fist

Barbarella

A Fistful of Dynamite

Escape Plan

bloodlust

The Evil

Black Tights

And remember, if you have a suggestion of a movie for me to go watch or review, let me know, I mean I’d probably do it next since well, you care or what not. Until Next time!