The story of Hercules and his Twelve Labours is one of my
favourite ancient legends, so much so that the only good essay I ever wrote back in high school was on it and the reasons behind the longevity of the story. It's a tale that has been adapted numerous times before and with good reason: It's a great story with lots of potential, full of action, cunning, darkness and redemption. However, even with that in mind, I find it kind of odd that we got not one but
two movie adaptations of it this year
alone. We’ve had Hercules starring Dwayne Johnson, which took a different spin
on the story and looked more at the idea of Hercules being a literal legend,
something I found quite fascinating. True, it didn’t completely succeed at that
idea, and it had more than a few narrative issues, but overall it was a decent
watch. Prior to that, we also had today’s film which is a relatively more
straightforward telling of the origin of Hercules.
Creature features are relatively easy stories to get right.
Mainly, because there isn’t much to get right in the first place. Either make a
giant-sized version of a regular creature like a snake or a shark, or let the
imagination run wild and create a whole new species like with Tremors. Add some
likeable characters and a basic plot to make the two meet, and there you go;
job done. Of course, as is the case with any sub-genre, there is always room
for error and in the age where Sharknado is a thing, the worst thing a creature
feature can do is be dull. No points for guessing how this one turns out.
