Hercules (2005)

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Hercules is a film chronicling the life of the legendary Greek hero, Hercules. It is most often aired on television as a two-part miniseries: the first part documents his early life in Tiryns and his desire and marriage to the lady Megara; the second part follows the more widely-recognised part of his life, in seeking redemption for the madness-induced murder of his family.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Differences with the myth

While a more faithful retelling of the tale than other recent versions (notably the Disney animated feature), it nevertheless takes certain liberties with the story, combining some elements and eliminating others entirely, possibly because of time constraints. For example, Hercules must now perform six labours instead of his usual twelve.

Also, no Greek gods appear in the film at all, though they are mentioned frequently (particularly Zeus and Hera, whose conflict is expanded here to represent the conflict between the divine masculine and the divine feminine). There are several consequences of this. Human characters are in some cases used to "replace" certain gods. The role of Hera as a direct antagonist of Hercules falls to his mother Alcmene and his wife Megara, neither of whom were his enemies in the original legend. It is Alcmene that places the snake in his cradle when he is an infant, and Alcmene and Megara conspire together to drive him mad and make him kill his three sons. Hercules' love interest, Deianeira, is now a nymph who in part represents the virginal goddess Artemis, at least early in the story. Furthermore, Hercules' birth father is revealed not to have been Zeus at all, but rather Antaeus, a mortal servant of Hera who raped Alcmene as revenge against her husband Amphitryon. Indeed, there is only one identifiable instance of divine intervention at all, which is when Hercules attempts to burn himself alive out of grief for his actions, but a miraculous lightning bolt extinguishes the flames.

Several of the beasts that Hercules battles as part of his labours have also been altered slightly. The Stymphalian birds are reimagined as harpies; the Nemean lion is revealed as being a sphinx; the mares of Diomedes are conflated with the Amazons, who now suffer a sort of lycanthropy; and strangest of all, the character of Antaeus is now used in place of the Cretan bull and Cerberus, as well as his original role and Zeus' role as Hercules' biological father. Hercules himself comments on this oddity in a line at the end of the film:

We've had birds that were harpies, a lion that was a sphinx, so why shouldn't the hound of hell be a bull who's really a man?