HERCULES AND THE AMAZON WOMEN (1994)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Just around time his enthusiasm for THE X-FILES began to
disappear, the author of this review has discovered a new interesting
and entertaining TV show - XENA: THE WARRIOR PRINCESS.
Although I never became a huge fan, I was always impressed with
the show's quality and even more impressed with its unusual
background. It all began with the show that was supposed to be
about adventures of Conan the Barbarian. When certain copyright
problems left producers with plenty of unusable sets, costumes and
props, they found ingenious solution - simple replacement of
protagonist and show's fictional universe with Greek mythology.
Thus the show HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS was
created (which would later lead to aforementioned spin-off XENA:
THE WARRIOR PRINCESS). Before the first regular season, five 90-
minute television films were made in 1994. First of them was
HERCULES AND THE AMAZON WOMEN, directed by Bill N.
Norton.
The plot of the film is set in mythical times of ancient Greece. Great
hero Hercules (played by Kevin Sorbo) gets summoned by his old
friend and faithful companion Iolaus (played by Michael Hurst).
Iolaus wants to settle down and get married, but before that happens
Hercules receives call from man named Pithus (played by Lloyd
Scott). Pithus is the only survivor from the group of peasants who
went to long and difficult journey to seek help for their village
plagued by mysterious monster. Hercules comes to village only to
discover that something is strange in Pithus' story - the only
inhabitants happen to men. The whereabouts of women becomes
clear when Hercules and Ioalus clash with the group of fierce
Amazons led by beautiful and cruel Hippolyta (played by Roma
Downey).
HERCULES AND THE AMAZON WOMEN represents mostly
enjoyable combination of Greek mythology, decent special effects,
humour and two men who look more like Californian surfers than
ancient heroes. The formula works here just as it would work in
subsequent TV films and shows, although there is a little bit more
connection with classic myths. The cast is very interesting. Anthony
Quinn is convincing as dirty Olympic deity, while Roma Downey,
best known for her role TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, probably
enjoyed playing un-angelic character. Fans of XENA are probably
going to notice Lucy Lawless playing fierce Amazon warrior Lysia -
that role represents something of a rehearsal for her later, much
better known incarnation in Hercules/Xena universe. Classic myth
purists that object over too much anachronistic feminism in
HERCULES AND THE AMAZON WOMEN are probably going to be
pleased with "deus ex machine" ending that is, in a strange way,
quite fitting to this kind of story. All in all, this film represents
successful introduction to the successful TV show.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Review written on May 12th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37764 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1280072 X-RT-TitleID: 1074568 X-RT-AuthorID: 1307 X-RT-RatingText: 5/10
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