![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo The Internet offered to show me Hercules Unchained- starring Steve Reeves- a movie I adored when I was nine and haven't seen since- and I said, "OK".
It would be pointless to take it apart. The innocent and uncritical nine year-old mind doesn't see how lifeless the direction and acting are; it just goes, "Greek Galley! Spooky lady! Hand to hand combat! Big Battle! Chariots! Siege tower full of soldiers falling over!" and has a whale of a time. As Tom Hood remarked, "I remember, I remember/But now 'tis little joy/ To know I'm further off from Heaven/ Than when I was a boy."
Footnote: Just about the most convincing performance comes from Primo Carnera- one time heavyweight champion of the world- as the giant Antaeus, son of the earth Mother- who gains new strength every time he hits the ground. Hercules finally figures out his shtick and picks him up and chucks him in the sea. He is ugly, he is expressive, he is dangerous- and in real life he'd have made mincemeat of body-builder Steve Reeves.....
It would be pointless to take it apart. The innocent and uncritical nine year-old mind doesn't see how lifeless the direction and acting are; it just goes, "Greek Galley! Spooky lady! Hand to hand combat! Big Battle! Chariots! Siege tower full of soldiers falling over!" and has a whale of a time. As Tom Hood remarked, "I remember, I remember/But now 'tis little joy/ To know I'm further off from Heaven/ Than when I was a boy."
Footnote: Just about the most convincing performance comes from Primo Carnera- one time heavyweight champion of the world- as the giant Antaeus, son of the earth Mother- who gains new strength every time he hits the ground. Hercules finally figures out his shtick and picks him up and chucks him in the sea. He is ugly, he is expressive, he is dangerous- and in real life he'd have made mincemeat of body-builder Steve Reeves.....
