If you thought Croc Dundee in LA sounded too cheesy a title for a movie, then you probably haven't heard of Hercules in New York, universally regarded to be Arnold's worst ever film. If there was one movie he wanted off his resume, this has got to be it. Everything about Herc in NY was awful, from the poor script right down to its near worthless direction. The movie also appeared too fake to be even remotely believable. Take the fight scenes for instance, which looked more like something you'd see on a school playground. Yes folks, it was indeed that bad. But remember, it was the 1970s and they did not have something called choreography back then. Well maybe they did with some of them Bruce Lee movies but its obviously missing here.

Without mention, the next complaint should have something to do with Arnold's fake voice dub, which did not sound right from the very beginning. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the film had retained Arnold's original Austrian accented dialog but the idea of replacing it with something even worse was downright unbearable. The voice dub was flat and sounded like it had been done by someone reading directly off the script.

One could immediately guess what the movie was all about from the title alone. It's another one of those fish out of water stories similar to Croc Dundee, but in Paul Hogan's place, we get a young Arnie Schwarzenegger with a really bad voice dub. In almost every movie where the lead character is a muscle-bound dumbo, there's usually some little runt in a supporting role to make it all seem complete. So basically, what we have here is a big guy who does all the bashing and a little guy who's really a worthless pain in the butt, but the big guy's too dumb to notice this. Then of course, there's always a girl whom the big guy would eventually fall for and they're all supposed to live happily ever after at the end of the movie.

If I had to give out points for predictability, this film would clearly be an A-plus. Other than being more predictable than a bad Kung-Fu flick, Herc in NY is also believed to be one of the stupidest movies of all time. You can't blame Arnold for wanting this lemon off his resume. If I were in his shoes, I'd be wanting to keep this a secret as well.

Whoever came up with this corny idea of a Greek demi-god being stuck in NY isn't exactly what I'd call a genius but I do feel this guy deserves some credit for reinventing the old fish out of water concept found in many other equally cheesy films. It isn't the writer's fault that the film flopped big time. Much of the blame should go towards the cheap producers as well as the director himself. The actors should be next on the blame list for the terrible job they did here.

As far as production values are concerned, Herc in NY scores a perfect zero in my book. You'll notice how really cheap the film is from the bad editing, awful fight choreography, and how they can't even get hold of a proper ring to do a wrestling scene in which Arnold supposedly becomes the top wrestler in town. Even that runaway bear in Central Park looked like an old grizzly rug to me. It was probably borrowed from a log cabin up in Canada and shipped to NY specially for this movie.

What I'm most confused about here is how a guy like Hercules could choose to end up in of all places, New York. It would have made more sense if he had ended up in a more fitting location, say for example, modern day Athens. So what's Herc to do in a place like NYC besides beating up on all the little people & taking his shirt off for all to see at Times Square? Well, how about picking a fight with the guys who run the local wrestling promotions? This sounds like a pretty sensible thing to do for a demi-god who's in need of some serious fun. And when I say serious fun, I'm not talking about the horizontal polka.

It's simply pathetic how the movie had made Herc look so dumb that even someone like Forrest Gump would seem like Einstein next to our brain-dead hero. Luckily for him, he's got a geeky little sidekick to do all the thinking. The 25 point IQ boost doesn't seem to be doing him much good as he lands himself in trouble with the boys from the local mob after an embarrassing loss at a weightlifting competition. This results in a lame chariot chase all over town which ends appropriately with a big all-out brawl where the bad guys are predictably beaten to a pulp courtesy of our muscle bound hero & his demi-god buddies.

Overall, this movie was just so bad that I'd have to give it credit ( which explains my 2 star rating ) for not even trying to appear the least respectable. The stupidity factor alone should be enough to act as deterrent but I'm pretty sure there are still others who'd want to pick this up just out of curiosity. I guess it wouldn't hurt that much if you're only paying a buck for the rental, so go on right ahead. Overall Grade: D


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8