Now, I don't begrudge fans their enjoyment of the popular 1990s programs Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, I just never found anything of worth in them. True, I have an affinity for Greek Mythology, but I just can't get past the cheesy humor, poor acting and laughable action that permeated these shows. That said, I'm always happy to see the fantasy genre find mainstream success, and the idea of taking Hercules - who has superhuman strength - and Xena - who has metahuman fighting skills - and putting them into animation (which lends itself well to that sort of action) is a good one. Unfortunately, the horrible execution of this worthwhile endeavor fails on every possible level, and what we're left with is a film so bad, it should be reclassified as a new form of corporal punishment.
Since any attempt I make to recount the plot of Hercules and Xena, would end up sounding incoherent, I'll simply forego the effort and give you incoherent highlights instead. In a nut shell, Hercules sets out on a quest to save his mother who's been "kidnapped" by Zeus, a jealous Hera frees the Titans from Tartarus with a powerful object called the Chronostone, Xena is forced to help fight the Titans when her sidekick Gabrielle gets turned into a giant bird and the gods of Olympus are transformed into woodland creatures when they fail to defeat Hera's Titans. The end result of all this tomfoolery is that Hercules and Xena must join forces, defeat the Titans themselves, and return the Chronostone to Zeus. Got all that? Good, now let me tell you why this story sucks so bad.
First off, the tone of this movie is far too childish. Obviously the cartoon was aimed at youngsters, but when you have two popular shows whose core audience is between 12-24 years of age, you might want to consider using a story that will appeal to people over the age of 4. That massive foundational mistake aside, the writing of this movie is horribly callow. The motivations are superficial, the characters simpleminded and the narrative one dimensional. Seriously, if Nickelodeon ever made Dora the Explorer: The Battle for Mount Olympus, it would probably look something like this.
Additional writing miscues include; an unnecessary apology by Xena to Gabrielle, a woefully misguided attempt to make Aphrodite into a hippy slacker, the complete absence of a dozen or more Greek Gods including Poseidon and Hades, an egregiously underpowered Ares (who Xena can beat up for some reason) and a line of dialog so bad, it's almost good. What is this baffling piece of awful, yet brilliant dialog you ask? Well, after Zeus is defeated by the Titans (and remember Zeus is supposed to be the proud king of all Greek Gods), he travels to the home of Hercules' mother, knocks on the door with as much dignity as he can muster, and gruffly proclaims "Open up. It's me ... Zeus". Now that may not be funny to read, but trust me, when spoken aloud in a cartoon setting, that phrase is one of the most unintentionally hilarious things you will ever hear.
Compounding the struggles of this film are a number of pacing problems as well. The stories second act in particular felt oddly climatic, with all the main characters coming together in one big fight. This led me to believe the film (i.e. nightmare) was coming to an end, but then things just fell apart and our heroes were forced to retreat. Another pacing problem occurs at the start of the third act when we are treated to back-to-back songs by the Titans and Xena. This was especially odd because outside of the opening credit song (which tells the basic story of Hercules and the Greek Gods) there was no singing for like 50 minutes in this movie. Then - out of nowhere - we get two completely unnecessary numbers which do nothing to advance the story. To be clear, I'm not upset that they included songs in this film. With everyone aping Disney's animated features at the time, I kind of expect it. But why did they play them one after another? Wouldn't it make more sense to spread out the music so that the film has some semblance of balance? I guess the movies producers weren't big on planning.
So if the writing of Hercules and Xena: The Battle for Mount Olympus is an unmitigated disaster, one would think the animation couldn't possibly be worse ... right? (sigh) Well it is. In fact, the visuals in this movie are so bad I will unequivocally declare that this is - by far - the worst looking DTV I've ever seen.
To start, the animation is decidedly cheap. Movement is sparse, the in-betweens are minimal and the staging awkward. Character designs are no better, with Zeus sporting ridiculously pedestrian attire (completely unbefitting a god), and the Titans looking egregiously generic. Then there's the backgrounds (oh god the backgrounds). Instead of creating the numerous settings of this film with paintings or even pen and ink illustrations, the producers of this movie used - what appear to be - pastel and color pencil backgrounds. These horribly under designed images are so poorly rendered it looks like a first year art student did them over the weekend to make a couple extra bucks. Take Olympus for example. This is supposed to be the home of the gods, a place of extravagance and grandeur. Yet the Olympus shown in Hercules and Xena is nothing more than an unassuming brown castle with an under decorated throne room. Of course, there is something to be said about using highly stylized and minimalist backgrounds correctly. Take Genndy Tartakovsky's show Samurai Jack, or even the old Looney Tunes as an example. These shows had very simplistic settings, but they were exceedingly creative and brilliant in design. The backgrounds in Hercules and Xena, however, are unimaginative, amateurish and completely unacceptable by comparison.
Honestly, the only word I can think to describe these movie visuals is cheap. No effort was put into the character designs past Xena and Hercules. The animation was obviously done on a less than shoe string budget. And the backgrounds are pure garbage. I don't know what kind of budget this film had, but judging from the final product it must have barely been six digits.
I mentioned earlier that there are three songs played during the course of this movie. The first one plays with the opening credits, and the other two run back-to-back at the start of the third act. Of these, the first and third songs would be considered passable. Neither is any good mind you, but at least they are competently written and performed. I'll even take it one step further and say that Lucy Lawless (who performs the Xena song) does an excellent job with her number. That said, whoever wrote the film's second song "We are the Titans" - is either a brilliant prankster, or the worst cartoon song writer in history. My favorite part was when the Titans would sing their chorus which includes the horribly funny verse "Boom Shaka Laka, Boom Shaka Laka, Boom". Not since the Rankin-Bass debacle "Return of the King" have I heard such an awful piece of music (BTW if you're curios, the "Return of the King" cartoon I'm referring to has a song titled "Where there's a whip, there's a way". I kid you not.). Anyway, the musical numbers in this movie do nothing to improve the already dismal situation brought about by the terrible story and animation.
On a less negative note, both Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless do some decent voice acting in this film. Though nothing could save Hercules and Xena: The Battle for Mount Olympus from its own absurdly bad production, I'm glad the title actors tried their best. Unfortunately, the secondary characters - like Zeus - were voiced by actors completely unfit for the parts, and ultimately the films vocal performances are ruined because of it.
Taken as a whole, I don't think Hercules and Xena: The Battle for Mount Olympus managed to do one thing right. The story is terrible, both in tone and structure. The animation looks like it was done by a bunch of art school dropouts. The songs are poorly planned, with one of them being completely laughable. And whatever good came from the main character voice acting was roundly ruined by the secondary actors. I don't know how else I can say it, this is a very, very, very, very bad movie. In fact, the only thing good about it is the poster (shown along with this review). Had this film been able to deliver the excitement and promise found in this advertisement, we could have been looking at the start of a new animation franchise. Instead, Hercules and Xena turned out to be nothing more than a forgettable cash grab, a pathetic attempt to make a quick buck off the popularity of its title characters. Though it's available on DVD, this film should not be viewed by anyone, not even fans of the original shows. Sad when you consider how good a fit both of these franchises are for animation, what a waste.
Footnote: I find it very funny that the poster for this movie included the tag line "The REAL Hercules". This was an obvious attempt to distinguish the Kevin Sorbo version of this character from the Disney animated feature "Hercules" that was released in 1997. This makes me laugh for two reasons. One, Disney's animated Hercules - which was a theatrical release - is about a billion times better than the Hercules and Xena direct-to-video feature sporting this presumptuous statement. Two, there have been dozens of incarnations of the Hercules character in various medias over the years, and the very idea that Kevin Sorbo's Hercules is the only "Real" one is just arrogant and asinine.
