Welcome to the latest homework assignment. I promise there will be more on this site than homework come 2025. For those of you who don’t know, I partner up with the At Odds with Wrestling podcast as they assign each other something wrestling related to watch and discuss. As assignments alternate this week continues to spotlight the Wheel of Rock and specifically the 2014 movie, Hercules. 

I think the best way to watch this is to go in assuming what the movie will be about. Here’s the Rock all big and jacked running through the mythology of gods and monsters with lots of CGI and the best rock music that the rest of the budget can afford. And you would be partly right. 

But this movie is far better than expected and honestly, I’m putting it at the top of the Rock’s movies that we have watched together. 

There’s a thing in literature called magical realism, and that means that everything in the story is normal like our regular day to day lives, except for one thing. The movie takes place in a time of myth, but in a clever twist, it’s all smoke and mirrors. There are legends and tales and stories that grow more fantastic the more that they are told. Civilizations that figured out architecture but still believe the woods are full of monsters. Hercules takes advantage of this. 

Hercules has a group of warriors that travel with him. All of them have their specialties. Not all are visible during the heat of battles and so Hercules appears to be a one man show of destruction. Hercules isn’t what we have long thought him to be, and also the Rock does not play himself in this movie. 

Hercules is by far stronger than anyone else, that is obvious throughout the movie. But is it the strength of a Demi god? Or is it that he is genetically gifted to be a larger man and knows how to use leverage against his opponents? Hercules and his crew are smarter and more battle savvy than most of those either on their side or against them. There are weapons and training and military strategy that enable them to win over and over again and thus the legend grows. If the Rock has any weakness throughout the movie it’s not pointy weapons, it’s politics. 

Maybe it’s the wig, maybe it’s the period the movie takes place during, but the Rock doesn’t fall into his usual trademarks. Sure he’s big, but this twist on the Hercules legend also requires him to be smart. Hercules’s body is an obvious strength but then his mind becomes the true asset. 

If anything, this is a great gender swap story. Hear me out. In real life and in fiction there are numerous examples of women who are beautiful and use that to their advantage. While guys are too busy looking, or assuming they’re all body and no brains, they use that to excel and rise to the top. Check out Hercules’s muscles and the lion skin and everything else, and while you’re doing this he’s already defeated your army. 

This was one of the most enjoyable homework assignments in the years we’ve been doing this. If Hercules is on TV one day while I’m flipping through I would stop and watch the rest of the movie. It’s funny how much harder it is to write many words for something enjoyed versus something terrible. No, the movie isn’t perfect. Some CGI shots are better than others. Is Hercules a god or not? I lean towards he’s gifted and not a god, but I think there could be good arguments for either theory. 

As we often feel disappointed by a movie, or pay per view, or whatever it may be that has been hyped up for months if not years and nothing could equal that build up, it’s nice to watch something with no expectations and be thoroughly entertained for a couple hours.