"Hercules Unchained," the sequel to Steve Reeves' mega-hit "Hercules," isn't quite what I remembered it to be. Reeves definitely has the look of Hercules, much more so than most of the bodybuilders who followed or imitated him in these movies, and he's actually not a bad actor, all things considered. Sylva Koscina, playing his wife, is absolutely breathtaking. She just radiates class, is spectacularly beautiful and has a body to die for. Sylvia Lopez, as Queen Oomphale, is another case altogether. Although she's quite leggy and has a great body, and thankfully doesn't mind showing it, she's frankly not all that attractive, looks to be wearing about 50 pounds of makeup and a gallon of lip gloss, and is, to be honest, not a very good actress. However, that doesn't matter much, as she has a whole slew of young, gorgeous, scantily clad servant girls prancing and slinking around, which is a pleasant distraction. The action scenes aren't as good as I recalled them--I saw it the other day for first time in probably 30 years and was actually quite disappointed. Hercules' fight with a tiger is laughable--almost as phony as Victor Mature's fight with the lion in "Samson and Delilah"--his clash with Oomphale's guards near the end of the picture is very badly done and the climactic battle between the forces of the two brothers is handled extremely poorly. There were more than enough extras to show a good battle scene, but for some reason the filmmakers focus mainly on close-ups or two-shots of a few individuals fighting each other, which makes no sense at all, and the battle consists mostly of a lot of guys running around raising dust and some chariots racing around, and that's pretty much it. Time apparently really does play tricks with your memory; I recalled this picture as having much more action in it than it really did, but other than Reeves' fight with Primo Carnera, pretty much nothing happens in the first half of the film, and the action that does occur in the second half is mostly perfunctory and, as noted, not very well done.
Still, Reeves is impressive to look at and does have a certain presence, you can't take your eyes of Sylva Koscina, the servant girls are a treat, the photography is nice for the most part and some of the sets are impressive. The dubbing is, of course, atrocious, but it always is in these pictures, so that's not news. You could do worse than rent this once. It's just really not worth seeing twice.
Still, Reeves is impressive to look at and does have a certain presence, you can't take your eyes of Sylva Koscina, the servant girls are a treat, the photography is nice for the most part and some of the sets are impressive. The dubbing is, of course, atrocious, but it always is in these pictures, so that's not news. You could do worse than rent this once. It's just really not worth seeing twice.