Little Hercules in 3-D

Today’s feature is yet another retelling of the tale of Hercules: 2009’s Little Hercules in 3-D.

The screenplay for Little Hercules in 3-D was written by Robert Boris, whose other credits include Doctor Detroit, Some Kind of Hero, Electra Glide In Blue, Oxford Blues, Extreme Justice, and Frank & Jesse. Little Hercules in 3-D was directed by executive producer Moh Khashoggi, and is his sole directorial credit to date.

The music for the movie was composed by Mark Denis, who primarily provides music for big budget movie trailers, including ones for The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ulton, Kingsman: The Secret Service, and Battleship. To date, Little Hercules in 3-D is his only feature film composition credit.

The effects work for Little Hercules in 3-D was provided by a team that included Kristina Duff (So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Got Talent), Michelle DeMilt (New Girl, The Voice, Glee), Angel Radefeld (After Earth, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), David Kenneth (Green Lantern), Dennis Michel (Drag Me To Hell), Ken Pellegrino (The Expendables 3, Fury), Malcolm Sim (From Dusk Till Dawn 3), Michael F. Hoover (Foodfight, Torque, DeepStar Six), and Jim Carbonetti (The Faculty, Simon Sez),

The cast of Little Hercules in 3-D includes recently-disgraced wrestler Hulk Hogan (Suburban Commando, Santa With Muscles, No Holds Barred), John Heard (CHUD, Cat People, After Hours, Home Alone), Judd Nelson (Hail Caesar, The Breakfast Club, The Boondock Saints II), Elliott Gould (MASH, Ocean’s Eleven, The Long Goodbye, Capricorn One, American History X), Diane Venora (Wolfen, The Cotton Club, Heat, The Substitute, The 13th Warrior), David Naughton (An American Werewolf In London), and professional wrestler Paul Wight, who uses the stage names The Big Show and The Giant.

The plot of Little Hercules in 3-D is summarized on IMDb as follows:

Little Hercules travels from Mt. Olympus to live life as a mortal in Los Angeles.

Little Hercules in 3-D takes its title from the nickname of the movie’s star, Richard Sandrak, who earned the name “Little Hercules” from being a well-known child bodybuilder.

Little Hercules in 3-D currently holds an unenviable 2.8 user rating on IMDb, along with a 25% audience score on the review aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes.

This first thing that struck me about Little Hercules is that the plot is strikingly similar to another movie that I covered some time ago on the blog: Hercules in New York, which is notable for being Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead acting debut. Despite how awful that film is, Little Hercules is somehow far worse despite having far more talent involved on screen.

This brings me to my second notable observation about this movie: all of the actors (particularly the experienced ones) act like someone off-screen is pointing a gun at them. They are clearly reciting a sub-par screenplay line-for-line with no wiggle room for improvisation or rewrites, and the effect is that they all sound terrible. In particular, both Hulk Hogan (a bad actor) and Elliott Gould (a good actor) come off looking like equivalent emotionless husks.

Speaking of which, how on earth is Elliott Gould in this movie? Overall, the flick looks like a live action children’s television show, but it is peppered with notable actors throughout the accessory cast who are far above this kind of schlock, including John Heard, Judd Nelson, and Diane Venora. I’m not sure if someone involved with the production was well-connected, or if there was just inexplicably a whole lot of money to burn on the tertiary cast.

Little Hercules looks absolutely terrible from just about any perspective that you can look at it from, and it is excruciating to sit through. Outside of inexplicably having some competent actors involved, the awful script and direction overcome any potential good that might have come of this project. Even the involvement of Gods can’t make me give a damn about a child’s track meet. Unless you are alarmingly curious, there is just no reason to deal with watching this mess.