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Rating:  - Disney Goofed!
I can't tell the number of hours my daughter and I sat in our big chair with a big bowl of pop-corn watching and rewatching this movie. She always loved it at five and, now at twelve, she still does.
Some people pick this movie apart as if it is supposed to be somehow "accurate" to the mythology. Sheesh! It's a disney film. Just enjoy the beautiful colors, more than tolerable story line, exceptional music and campy laughs. I did rewatching it for the first time on dvd.
One final point: Disney goofed in that they being one of the most left-wing liberal organizations out there mistakenly presented the Gospel to the world in cartoon allegory.
Think about it: The only Son of the Most High becomes human, and dwells among men, "discovers" himself, all the while perfoming a myriad miraculous feats. How does he become a "True Hero"? By sacrificing himself for the one that he loves...His bride.
Alright, it's a bit of a stretch and surely unintentional, but it still works. It's a beautiful thing!
Rating:  - Disney rewrites Greek Mythology
What a shock, Disney changed a story when they adapted it to an animated feature. Hercules is representative of the whole Disney canon in this aspect. This has been the norm for Disney going back to Snow White so I think complaints don't hold much water, especially if someone is willing to accept previous changes made in other Disney films.
As for Disney's Hercules, it's a fun film. This was a nice break for Disney as they had been putting out some heavier material for a LONG time. Aladdin was fairly light-hearted but Lion King, Pocahontas, and especially Hunchback of Notre Dame had all been harder edged. Hercules is a comedy and needs to be looked at as such.
The voicework and songs are all pretty good here. I do like the gospel approach on the music and think it works quite well. Menken, as usual, does a fantastic job with the music and Zippel does well with the lyrics. Granted, he's no Howard Ashman but no one is.
I wouldn't call Hercules one of Disney's best, but it is a good, entertaining film that fulfills its mission. Don't expect to get a lesson in Greek mythology. I do agree with others who encourage viewers to read the mythology, but that doesn't invalidate Disney's film. It's clear that they were merely inspired by the story of Hercules and went from there. I think it's a good thing that they don't feel constrained to follow the stories to a tee; a flat adaptation would not be this entertaining.
As for the DVD, it's far from spectacular. The film is not in anamorphic widescreen and the quality of the "Making if" Featurette is horrible. It looks like someone taped it on VHS and then dumped it on to DVD. The film looks good and the sound is good. This is a fairly barebones release and is one of the most poorly treated of all Disney animated films. It seems to be another that Disney has decided to forget or neglect. What a shame.
Rating: - Disney does its magic!
Another Disney classic just like Pocahondas, Shrek, Snow white, Alandin and Lion King. These are cartoon figures and films that are never forgoten.
Rating:  - The legend reworked...
To be fair, the legends of Herakles, as they were originally written, have little to do with this movie, but maybe that's for the best. Having grown up on Superman, Batman and the Justice League, I have a hard time calling a person like Herakles a hero. In the original legends, he was a warrior, but also a brute who eventually wound up killing his wife and children in a fit of rage. He also wasn't, as far as I can tell, as strong as in this version.
Therefore, interpretations of Herakles are, I think, to be judged not on whether or not they deviate from the legend, but on where and why.
Disney has attempted to take Herakles (or Hercules, in the Roman) and make it a story about a true hero, and a perfect one at that. There's nothing I like more than perfect heroes. They inspire me. Conceptually, I like the idea.
Instead of Herakles being the illegitimate son of Zeus and a mortal woman, he's conceived in love by Zeus and Hera and turned mortal by a potion. Not bad. As changes go, it works better than most.
Herc meets Meg at the beginning of his hero carreer and falls instantly in love with her and she with him (another deviation from the legend, and a very good improvement.) Of course, because Hera is his mother in this version, she can't be Herc's enemy, so they make his opponent Hades; lord of the dead, which could be worse, as changes go. I've never seen Hades as being all that bad of a guy, but that's how it goes. Then there's the Hydra, which is, if anything, much larger and more powerful than it was originally, so that's good too. Aside from this, however, I have to say I was disappointed with most of the changes.
The titans, to start with, were underplayed considerably. It might have been premature to mention that they were Zeus' predecessors, but they could at least have given them powers similar to what they actually had, and a roughly-similar appearance. Oceanus, for example, lashing out with blasts of water from his hands like a fire hose, or Cronos reversing the movements of his olympian enemies would have made for an excellent action sequence, particularly since Hercules didn't beat the titans alone in the original stories, nor does it make sense that he should in this one (grabbing a whirlwind? Come ON now.)
I actually didn't mind Hades' used-car-salesman demeanor all that much, though I didn't see a reason why he should have flame-based powers when that's clearly Apollo's territory. Further, I thought most of the Gods and Muses were given no credit at all in terms of their innately glorious nature.
Why is this the case? I think Disney made the mistake, in this film, of not just trying to make the legends clean, but FUN as well, and there's nothing fun about war. I'm not saying they couldn't have made the concept work. In fact, I'm saying they could have made it work if they'd toned down the comedy and given the characters a bit of respect (Justice League style.)
Still, for what it's worth, this is one of the few movies left in the world that isn't afraid to dwell on the concept of a hero, and for that it's worth at least one viewing. Rent it from your local video store, in my opinion, before you make your decision.
Rating: - Good Fun - the Kids and I Liked It
This is a great show and very entertaining. The story isn't the Greek classic, but it's a fine riff on it. The songs are good, and they grow on you as you watch. I take issue with the reviewer who thought there was gratuitous sexuality in the Meg character - it's just a cartoon, for pete's sake.
Like some other reviewers, I was also annoyed with Michael Bolton singing "Go The Distance" over the end credits, but this DVD has a music video of the Spanish language version, "No Importa La Distancia," sung by Ricky Martin, and it is killer! This one is well worth the money!
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