HERCULES IN NEW YORK (1970) I wish I could say it was so-bad-it's-good It sounds so funny in theory. Long before he became a big (big!) star, Arnold Schwarzennegger (then going by the name Arnold Strong) starred in this infamously awful little fantasy/comedy where he plays Hercules, in New York. It's terrible. You'd think that this would make for some compelling viewing for those of us who might be described as morbidly curious. It doesn't. I can't think of another movie which took so long (about five weeks) to get through. I'd pop the tape back into the VCR, watch for about five minutes, and unable to take it anymore, I'd stop and put it off for several more days. Repeat as often as necessary to finish viewing the film. It's not just that it's awful; oh, it IS awful, but there's something else here. There's something disturbing, something really unpleasant about watching this. I can't help but think that this must be like watching a favorite actress in a long-forgotten before-she-was-famous porn video. Arnold was THE guy for action movies when I was a teenager. I know, it just hasn't been the same after Terminator 2, despite some mild winners along the way. But in his day, he was The Terminator, he was John Matrix, he was Dutch, he was freakin' Conan! But first...he was Hercules. And O, what a crappy Hercules he was. It's just so...I dunno...undignified. But before we get to Arnold, I guess a brief description of the plot might be necessary. Hercules goes to New York, meets a goggly-eyed old man (Arnold Stang, surely often confused with Arnold Strong) and performs various feats of strength (wrestling an escaped bear in Central Park, throwing a javelin really really far), causing onlookers to gape in awe. This happens a lot. Complimenting his Angli-fied surname alteration is Mad Max-style dubbing, which gives us a voice which just...it just isn't Arnold. We all know Arnold's voice. His voice is, through no real merit of its own, one of the most famous in the world. Seeing Arnold talk with a voice like this produces the same kind of crashing "unreality" feeling as (not to bring this up again, but...) seeing Demi Moore playing guitar in One Crazy Summer. Arnold spends most of the movie shirtless, and you can't blame him for that...but it just makes the incongruity of that voice coming from him that much worse. I just don't know what else to say here. It's bad, and not in that cult-classic, geeky kind of bad. This is really bad, from any angle you dare approach it, without even unintended laughs, except maybe (for some of us) the haphazard way Greek and Roman names for these mythical figures are tossed about, Mercury (Roman) next to Zeus (Greek) for example. And what the hell is Samson (not the band - see The Incubus for that - I mean the guy from the Bible!) doing here? It all ends with Hercules going back to Mount Olympus, leaving his friend whining about his own loneliness for the remainder of his depressing life, I guess because life after hanging out with Hercules just isn't life at all. In one of those "life imitating art" twists of fat, Schwarzennegger went on to become a huge star, and who the hell is Arnold Stang? Now I'M depressed. To be fair, this movie looks like it was made to entertain fairly young children, probably young children from places like India and Brazil, for whom New York is as remote and mythic as Hercules. So if anyone out there has shown this movie to their young kids, by all means, tell me what they thought of it. I promise, I won't turn you in to the authorities. I wouldn't wish this movie on my neighbor's dog, the one that keeps busting loose and tearing up people's garbage. If you want a so-bad-it's-good Hercules movie, go rent one of those Lou Ferrigno movies, it's got a giant clockwork dog that shoots lasers out of its mouth, and you get to see how hilariously unconvincing Lou was at swinging a sword. This? Don't bother. You're not that curious, y'hear me? BACK TO THE H's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE