More science, more chaos with Hercules!

THE ADVENTURES OF HERCULES II (1985)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The Adventures of Hercules II" is one of the crudest, unintentionally biggest laugh riots of the latter part of the 20th century. It is cheesy beyond finding a hot dog in the crust of your pizza - the movie operates on the visual level of a hot dog in a cheese pizza floating in space and having it referred to as a planet, a bedazzled planet at that.

The strongest man in the universe, Hercules (Lou Ferrigno), is back as he's lured from presumably suspended animation in space by his father, Zeus. Hercules has to find and extract The Seven Thunderbolts of Zeus that have been stolen by seven different gods and/or superhumans and stop the Moon from colliding with Earth so he can save mankind, though it is hard to tell if one event can cause the other and vice versa. This time, Hercules fights a creature that looks like a giant mop, and is engaged in another fight with the Shakespearean King Minos (William Berger, clearly having a devil of a time), who is resurrected from the dead by drops of blood - a scene right out of any 50's Hammer horror picture. For some reason, both of these Hercules flicks adopt the theme that science leads to chaos, a belief held by King Minos.

"Hercules II" is short on logic or brains yet faster-paced and more fun than Ferrigno's first "Hercules" vehicle. Part Deux was not released theatrically and went straight to video (and appears to have been shot in conjunction with the first film). Just like the first film, this sequel is poor in every department and contains the expected crude special effects and mismatched shots, including a bizarre fight in space where Hercules is animated and turns into an outlined cartoon gorilla (I shat you not); an oracle comprised of sepia-toned two little people; an animated fire monster that looks more electrical; a Medusa creature that wouldn't pass muster on Sesame Street, etc. Still, we do have two stunning Italian babes (Milly Carlucci and Sonia Viviani) for males to ogle; some occasionally surreal sets; incredibly bad (and purposefully?) dubbing; Ferrigno flexing his muscles and growing proportionately to mammoth size in space to...well, you get the picture. It left me with a giant silly grin on my face.