Review of Hercules (2014) by Robert H — 14 Aug 2014

A very cute but less standard Disney film. Hercules tends to poke fun at the standard Disney format which is a good and bad thing. First the bad... the reason Disney films work and why people enjoy them is because they know what to expect. They know the formula and enjoy said formula so going against the grain may make for some unpleasant experiences by your regular viewers. On the good side however is the fact that new viewers (children are the intended audience afterall) don't necessarily have the formula ingrained into them already so taking a different approach isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the film hadn't been making fun of some of the Disney tropes, I might side with the good actually being bad, but it's clear the filmmakers were trying something different on purpose. The story is slightly different from the classic greek mythos you may be familiar with but that's nothing new for Disney who always tends to change the source material to meet their needs.

Where I find fault with Hercules is not in the silly demons, the different animation style, or the voice casting. I actually like all those aspects. For me it's the music. In a film about ancient Greek mythology having all the music be in the style of Gospel music didn't work for me. Greek music or influence would have been so much better and I'm not even going to get started on the fact that Gospel stems from Christianity which is a completely different religion.

Hercules isn't my fave Disney film and isn't the most popular either but when it comes to films from this dark era of Disney's film history, Hercules does stand out slightly from the pack as something better than bad.