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You know all those trailers showing Hercules fighting the various monsters for which he is famous? Those are pretty much the entirety of mythological or supernatural content. This is not the story of the larger-than-life demigod. This is the story of a pretty kickass Greek mercenary soldier with an inexplicably Latin name, who wanders around at the head of his small band of companions, profiting off of an exaggerated reputation, enhanced by his nephew, an otherwise useless kid with a knack for blowing Hercules exploits into epic tales. That's where those scenes from the trailers of him fighting a hydra and the giant boar & lion come in: Hercules' PR man is telling tall tales in an effort to get laid. Other supernatural beings, like centaurs or Cerberus are revealed to be the result of bad eyesight.

The sad part is, the story is not a bad one. Dwayne Johnson is joining Jason Statham & Cameron Diaz in that limited pool of actors whose casting is generally sufficient to get me to see it, and I am increasingly convinced there is an adequate actor with a good feel for picking a story under all the steroids. This is a story about a guy who is known for the incredibly hyped & fictious feats attributed to him, but the reality is still a highly capable individual. The hydra might have had a lame explanation, but Hercules' defeat of the reality of the threat was still an impressive (offscreen) accomplishment.

When Hercules is hired by the King of Thrace (John Hurt) to save his realm from a demonic adversary, he trains the conscripted citizenry into a credible force of hoplites (for Hollywood values of credible hoplites, of course, but still miles ahead of "300" in historical accuracy), and leading them on a convention military campaign, albeit one in which he & his companions fight individual duels in front of the army formation in the best Homeric style, but it IS a summer movie after all.

That's one of the things that keep me uncertain whether or not I liked it. On the one hand, it's an incredibly disappointing "realistic" truth-behind-the-legend story (in contrast to the much better executed "The 13th Warrior"/Beowulf story. Yes, I liked it, shut up), but then they'll turn around and throw in oddities. Where they make a point of covering the soldiers in armor, and training them in visually unsexy phalanx fight styles, the lead characters go running ahead to fight solo battles half-clad. There are no mythological monsters, but the finale is a series of improbable feats of strength empowered by a pep talk encouraging Hercules to live up to his absurd legends, and the film features a number of eerily accurate and atypically explicit oracular predictions. It also does a poor job of integrating Hercules tragic backstory with the state of the character as shown in the film. His wandering mercenary days are following the death of Megara and their children (which should be a fun flashback to show kids whose only reference is the Disney cartoon), and there is an awkward plot twist, which is entirely predictable due to actor recognition, attempting to tie backstory to nowstory.

Rufus Sewell and Ian McShane are the only other recognizable actors in this film, as Hercules' right-hand henchman, and prophetic advisor. His entourage includes Atalanta, who aside from the name, sex and occupation has absolutely no reference to the mythological figure, and who is one of those oddly unrealistic notes in a movie about the reality underlying legends, in that her costume (a stiff bare-middle tank top & a miniskirt) is prime example of the Male Gaze phenomenon that feminist killjoys are always pissing and moaning about. Also, would it kill someone to understand that shooting a bow is a task requiring great upper body strength? Why does everyone seem to think it's an acceptable weapon to fob off on the chicks because you can't expect them to swing an axe or a pike with the same facility as a former wrestler? The skinny woman playing Atalanta is mildly more realistic as an archer than Keira Knightly in "King Arthur" (which is a similarly realistic & fun-sapping treatment of a legend), but would probably be better served using the darts that are Sewell's trademark weapon. Oh, and speaking of Hollywood tropes for women in sword-and-sandal films, the princess is a medical professional. Because there is no ancient or fantasy analog for any other Hollywood-acceptable chick occupations which seem to be limited to reporter, museum/art gallery person, chef/bakery owner, lawyer, architect or advertising executive.

Anyway, there are worse things to spend the price of a movie ticket on ("Begin Again", and giant middle finger to concepts of infrastructure and economic sustainability, in the guise of a masturbatory tale of/by music snobs, springs to mind), but just dial back your expectations. This is way more Clive Owen as "King Arthur" than "Maybe they did 'Clash of Titans' right this time?" It is most assuredly not the movie advertised in the trailers.