Does not hold up so well

Rating: 5/10 (12 January 2020)

This is one of the few Disney 90s era movies I dont recall ever actually watching and having now seen it I dont feel like I missed out. Its just fine. The story feels very condensed, the acting is a mixed bag and the animation feels like they cut corners. The biggest offender is the musical numbers. Some of it is dull and some of it is pain inducing. Its very by-the-numbers told in short 5 minute periods accompanied by a song. hercules childhood is told in 5 minutes "no one likes him because hes superhumanly strong" eehh ok. Then he finds out hes has to earn being a god so he finds a satyr played by danny devito who feels like hes phoning it in. They then go on adventures to prove hes a hero. This is where the writing falls apart because its kind of aimless and he doesnt fight anyone or anything interesting. I think the movie could have been vastly improved by him actually doing the 12 tasks etc. For each of the yadda yadda scenes they have a song but its just them descrbing what theyre doing, its very stilted. Theres no oo-de-lally or hakuna matata to make hercules memorable. The highlight of the film is Meg and Hades played by susan egan and james woods respectively. Their back and forth is entertaining and lively as snidely villain and reluctant hench woman. The rest of the movie unfortunately is ugly and forgettable. Sadly my review points went down as Im writing because everything I look back on in this film feels like yet another misfire. A real missed opportunity in this one.