If you've never seen this film, consider yourself amongst the lucky. Even if you're a fan of those cheesy old Hercules films that Italy was popping out like a white trash welfare mom, I doubt you'd find any pleasure in this travesty. If you do find enjoyment in Hercules In New York , then simply pick up your phone, dial 9-1-1 and give the recording the necessary information and someone will be along to help you right away. Arnold Schwarzenegger completists may want to check this out, as it's his first starring role on film, but don't be surprised to the point of stroke when you realize the voice coming out of his big Austrian lips doesn't match the heavy accent you've come to know and love from such classic examples of American cinema like Kindergarten Cop and Junior , because all of Arnie's lines are dubbed. Yes, not unlike Mel Gibson in Mad Max , Mr. Schwarzenegger's accent was so weighed down and incomprehensible, it was decided to be beneficial to let someone with a firm grasp of the English language take over and just use Arnold for the eye candy he'd become known for... in spite of his David Letterman dental structure. The name of the man living in Arnold's voice box for the tenure of the movie? Bah, I really don't give a good two shits about the flick in general, so I'm not about to waste the effort in looking up this info! Let's get this over with.

Our movie first sets out to prove that the Christians, Jews, Hindu, Muslim, etc. were all wrong about their choice in deities, as we look in on Mount Olympus and the REAL Gods of the world: the Greek ones... and I'm chopped camel liver. For those of you adept in the mythology of the Greek (or who just like watching reruns of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" or "Xena: Warrior Princess") shouldn't have much trouble following along, but should the story yield something that the pedestrians amongst us can't sort out, I've gotcha covered. Hercules (probably the best known of the Greek heroes, half man and half God, the strongest being on Earth, currently featured in that crappy space explorer show "Andromeda"... you know the guy) turns out to be a big fan of mortals, finding great amusement in their feeble lives and the heaps of attention he gets from them for being able to toss around livestock and fat people. Much to the chagrin of big daddy Zeus, who dislikes Hercules's "commoner" side and wishes his renegade offspring would be a good boy and stay on Olympus with the other Gods, feeding each other grapes, drinking wine and engaging in some hot and steamy deity law darts like you've only seen in the raciest Italian underground movies. If I were Zeus I wouldn't be too concerned with my upstart kid frolicking with mortals all the time, I'd be more concerned with the horrible opening screens that permeate films involving him! In this instance, the opening credits play out over a gut wrenching, stomach crampingly corny (as in "I can't digest corn, so my shit is full of it") painting of Arnold Schwarzenegger (in the role of Hercules of course and appearing under the moniker "Arnold Strong") with the name "Hercules" stamped above it in bad comicbook text, with the rest of the title (and important copyright info that would be amusing to look up while at the Library Of Congress) being superimposed over the shaky film with perfectly steady, computer generated words. I guess this could save them money if they decided to turn this into a whole series, including the instant-classics-in-the-waiting Hercules Goes To Summer Camp , Hercules And The Great Greek Orgy and Hercules In The Hood! Take THAT Warwick Davis!

When Herc asks dad for permission to slum with the mortals, Zeus says no and gets a barrage of whining and griping for it. So, to teach Herc a lesson, Zeus grabs one of his bent plastic arrows (apparently meant to be "lighting bolts"... if you buy a 3rd rate Zeus costume at the $.69 store) and *ZORCH*es the impudent beefcake to Earth to fend for himself... Yes, that's right parents, if your child wants to do something you don't want them to, the best way to get your point across is to GIVE THEM EXACTLY WHAT THEY ASK FOR, thereby giving them a harsh glance into the cold, unforgiving eyes of the real world... if only my parents had taken lessons from this movie instead of "Child Abusers Monthly". I wished I'd canceled their subscription to that damn thing when I had the chance... Anyway, Herc gets shot down to Earth and lands in the Atlantic Ocean, where he's picked up by a freighter and delivered to the ports of New York City. Despite the opening narrative about how Herc has been to Earth many times before, he doesn't seem to have any qualms about boasting of his celestial origins, even though everyone he tells this to looks at him like he's got a half eaten Paulie Shore growing out of his left nostril. He does speak pretty good English for being a Greek God though, which suddenly strikes me as odd that the Gods all speak English... then again, the fact this thing ever made it beyond the "just another bad idea by some moron" stage has been striking me as odd since the beginning, so it's no surprise.

Well, when the sailors on the freighter demand some explanation or payment from Herc for their good deed (and the preppie yacht sailing clothes they set him up with), his only reply is more snooty back talk about how he's so big and fancy and descended from the Gods. Unhappy with the reply, the entire crew tries to dog pile him, but get nothing but bruises and low flying sky miles for their troubles. After busting some mortal coconuts with his Herculean (*groan*) strength, our hero is taken under the most mortal or mortals, a fruity little pansy named Pretzie. His name's not really Pretzie, but everyone calls him such because he sells Pretzels by the pier out of his little picnic basket. Somehow I think he's full of shit, because if he were to saunter around the docks doing such a thing, I think he'd be called "Hey pussy!" or "You little bitch". I'm guessing his name really comes from his mom, who was killed by a Pretzel induced heart attack while in labor with him. Either way, he's a scrawny old man that I wouldn't let near my children, provided I had any that I could show in public. Back to the movie, Herc and Pretz escape their pursuers via taxi cab, which astounds the muscle bound demigod to no end... again, despite the opening narrative on how Hercules has been to Earth MANY times before, he's flabbergasted to see a "horseless chariot"... did the Gods suddenly lose interest in the human race after the fall of Rome or something?! I mean, that would explain why they're still wearing the same soiled bed sheets that were big back in the days of Caesar and all. It would also explain why Hercules, who's supposedly the only God who still visits Earth, is so far the fuck out of it!

After escaping, Herc throws a fit over the outlandish screw job the cabby tries to push on him (2 whole American dollars) and goes all soccer hooligan, overturning the car and making a run for it with his feeble little compadre close behind. Afterwards the son of Zeus shows up a college track & field team, makes his pecs dance and wrestles an escaped "grizzly" into submission... yeah, it escaped right out of bad Roger Corman movie... like there's any other kind of Roger Corman movie... The costume of Werewolf made a more convincing bear!... too bad it was supposed to be a werewolf... but enough about that. Being a shrewd businessman, Pretz exploits his new pal and gets him a new career. In what? Well, if you've got the world's strongest (and most naive) superman at your whim, what would you do with him? No ladies, making him your sex slave is not a career, nor is making him flex covered in corn oil. As for the guys, you know where you'd put him: in the wrestling ring! Remember though, these are the pre-WWF days, which means the outcomes of the matches were NOT foreordained and the world of organized crime could dip their greasy fingers into the pot and stir things up to their liking. Such is the case with Pretz and Herc, as a group of Mafioso "tuffs" advance on them menacingly with the intentions of buying off the demigod, using such colorful dialogue as "that boy of yours is a comer"... which leads me to believe that bootleg porn is another of the illegal activities these guys like to deal in.

Meanwhile, stewing on his throne in Olympus, Zeus decides it's time to teach Herc a real lesson and send his personal hitbabe Nemesis to lay some smackdown on his bastard child. I guess Zeus had a subscription to "Child Abusers Monthly" too. On the romance front, Hercules is mackin' his Godly meat on a mortal broad who just ignores Herc's demigod talk and who's obviously in it for Herc's body, as this was LONG before Arnold "Strong" had all that Hollywood blood money. As if there wasn't enough shit dripping on my TV screen, Herc's evil stepmom gets in on the act Cinderella style, attempting to make her stepson's life more complicated by *zonk*ing him with evil magic during a weight lifting competition. The spell saps the man god of his legendary strength, leaching him weak and helpless like Alex Trebek without his answer cards... wait... shouldn't that be "his question cards"?... uhm, anyway, Herc goes pussy and loses the competition to his opponent, a large slice of testosterone named Nitro. It's not the competition that's the trouble though, it's the reaction Herc's mobster financiers, as they pull their firearms and chase the confused Olympian and his friends (i.e. his braniac girlfriend and Pretz) through mid-town Manhattan and Central Park. Leading the chase via horse drawn hot dog cart, then on foot, the exercise in cheesy '70s comedy chase sequences comes to a head in a warehouse, where Hercules must fend off stereotype Italian-American baddies without his superhuman strength. But, things turn in his favor, as Zeus not only takes pity on him and restores the strength Juno stole from him, but two other Olympians, Atlas and Sampson (Sampson? Isn't he hanging out with the wrong set of mythological beings here?!) arrive clad in their flashiest togas to lend a hand!

After much box throwing, barrel tossing and body slamming of bad guys, the Godly trio proves triumphant (though 3 beings of Godly might smiting a couple mortals isn't exactly something for the minstrels to write toothpaste jingles about) and Hercules decides that poppa was right, maybe it's time to go back to Olympus, live up to the deity duties he's responsible for and just grow up. So, after saying a heartfelt (albeit impersonal) adios to his wormy amigo Pretzie, our hero's tale comes to an end. Of course, where one story ends another always begins, as we see Zeus finally give in and go the "kool" route, garbed in a dapper evening suit (at least Zeus realizes which millenia he's in) and hitting good ol' terra firma for a night of mortal puntang! Fucking hypocrite... The moral of today's story ladies and boys? All wrestlers are ex-demigods and all ex-demigods are in turn former body builders, therefore, it can be construed that A - P + Q % the ratio of a six pack of Heinikens x the circumference of 90 minutes = the cost of Z. If the cost of Z is greater than the 3rd multiple of the cost of a new release at Blockbuster, but less than the initial interest rate on two dirt mall Godzilla bootleg VCDs, then the only possible answer is: a garden spade. Yes, that's right, a garden spade is what I would rather have to devour and digest and expel from my lower intestine, rather than watch this movie again. And I thought I'd never use calculus in this eternity... Wrapped up in all this somewhere is Hades, but I'm still not positive what he did, other than act all gay and hit on Herc for a quickie in the subway... what a disgrace to the title of Death God!

Basically it's your standard, "who's fucking responsible for this?!" movie, loaded with the usual horrible acting, pathetic story, and so forth, which I won't really need to go into graphic detail about, because they're all pretty self-explanitory. However, on a few more specific notes, allow me a couple of rants. First of all, what's with all the fucking Greek Mafia wedding music? I felt like I was watching a really long Olive Garden commercial! Now that I think about it, maybe if I was covered in curly black hair, dressed in a tiny Speedo and a big gold chain, and spilling oil like a cracked Exxon tanker (like Mike and the 'bots in the Devil Fish episode of MST3K), I would've enjoyed Hercules In New York in the slightest. But, I'm not, I didn't and I'll be righteously damned if I'm ever going to find out. Another thorn in my colon? Despite being "based" upon Greek mythology, half of the fucking references are to ROMAN mythology! In Greek myth, Zeus's wife/Hercules's conniving step-mother is known as Hera, NOT Juno, which is the queen of the Gods of ROMAN myth. Also, Sampson was a figure of the OLD TESTAMENT! Greek myth predates the Bible damn it, don't these people do ANY research?! While on the topic of the lame characters, who was that one Goddess who looks like an Avon Lady went medieval on her visage in a humanoid typhoon of eye shadow and blush?! Who's she supposed to be, Trampina, Goddess of Bad Make-Up?! Feeding myself to a large piece of farming equipment is looking rather painless in comparison to putting up with this again...

One amusing note (to those who find this kind of insipid coincidence amusing) on the movie is the fact that both Hercules and Pretzie are played by men with the same first name: Arnolds "Strong" (Schwarzenegger) and Stang (also known as the voice of Hanna-Barbera's Top Cat). Fortunately, unlike the Corey films of the '80s (with Coreys Feldman and Haim), there were no more Arnold movies to follow up Hercules In New York... if you could register disappointment through the internet, you would find NONE in my voice right now. You would however find great elation and perhaps even a little arousal when I tell you that this damn thing is finally over and I can move on to greater things... like creamed cheese... yes, in the face of Hercules In New York, even cream cheese is an adventure of a lifetime! On a final note, for those of you who think the movie might be better with Arnold's original lines left in, well, if you have the American Movie Classics (AMC) channel, then keep your eyeballs peeled like two freakish grapes, because they occasionally show this movie with the original soundtrack in tact, which, yes, includes Hercules speaking with an Austrian accent. Trust me, it just got worse... Though nothing else, at least the film taught us all one important lesson, despite what some crotchity old women may tell you, men ("nuuuuuude or otherwise") CAN fly outside of jet planes!

Also Known As: Hercules: The Movie; Hercules Goes Bananas

Sequels: None

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: hitting yourself in the face repeatedly with a shovel while watching it... makes it even better!