YMMV / Hercules (2014)

• Adaptation Displacement: The ads for the film avoided any mention of it being based on a comic book.
• Complete Monster:
  • King Cotys of Thrace is a power-hungry monarch who murdered his own son-in-law in order to take power. Cotys later gave Hercules the task of preparing an army for him which he could then use to fight Rhesus, a supposedly cruel rebel who had massacred several villages. It is revealed later on, however, that Cotys himself had ordered those mass killings, and that Rhesus himself was a revolutionary that Cotys shifted the blame to. Cotys later attempts to murder his own daughter when he learns she has told Hercules the truth behind his rule, and means to corrupt his grandson into becoming a cruel ruler to carry on his reign.
  • King Eurystheus of Athens allegedly banished Hercules for murdering his own family. In reality, Eurystheus is a jealous ruler who had Hercules's wife and children torn apart by wolves and framed him to ruin his reputation. Allying with King Cotys and sponsoring his razing of Thrace's villages to shift blame onto the rebel Rhesus, Eurystheus seeks to conquer Greece in bloody conquest with his cohort.
  • General Sitacles is King Cotys's thuggish military leader. Intent on seeing his king take Greece by bloodshed, Sitacles aids in his plot to take Thrace from the righteous Rhesus, at one point personally trying to execute his own innocent scouts to cover up a rushed error.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Amphiaraus, due to being one of the funniest character and being played by Ian McShane.
  • Despite being what he is, John Hurt makes Cotys a very memorable villain. Joseph Fiennes likewise makes Eurystheus memorable. Had they been portrayed by any other actors, the two would have been one-note and not as memorable, ultimately being indistinguishable from other sword and sandal villains.
  • Rufus Sewell's performance as Autolycus is one of the most memorable in the film.
  • Christopher Fairbank as minor character Gryza.
  • Joe Anderson as Phineas is also memorable, especially since, again his performance helps him from being a one-note character.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Rock would later play another superpowered demigod in an animated film, brought to you by the same company that produced another film starring Hercules.
  • Tydeus is played by Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie, who also voiced teenage Hercules in the Norwegian dub of the Disney version.
  • Ian McShane in this film wants to die getting run through with a spear, only for it not to happen. He would ironically get his wish in Season 3 of American Gods (2017), where Ian McShane's character Mr. Wednesday would die by getting run through with his own spear Gungnir by one of his past victims.
• Magnificent Bastard: Rhesus is a Rebel Leader allegedly pillaging the Thracian countryside. In reality fighting against the evil King Cotys, Rhesus takes any means possible to defend his country, even setting up an ambush to kill Cotys' armed farmers fighting him. Defeated after a grueling battle, Rhesus reveals Cotys' true intentions to Hercules and helps the hero break free of their captor, fighting through Cotys' men to kill the vile king and save Greece.
• Narm Charm: The Rock's line, "I. Am. HERCULES!!" has this effect due to its overly-dramatic delivery. It becomes a real-life Funny Moment when you realize that Rock, according to an interview with Conan O'Brien, went so over the top with that line that he literally blacked out when he was done screaming.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • While the effects are better than the other Hercules film (especially in regards with the lion which looks pretty sweet), they're still rather unconvincing when placed with human actors. Most noticeably during the fight with the hydra. Granted, once you realize the purpose of those creatures, the effect comes off as a little less jarring.
  • The wolves towards the end of the film look pretty unconvincing, especially compared to the Cerberus that appeared earlier in the film.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • This is a movie about Hercules that depicts his battles with famous monsters as nothing more than tall tales, rather than using them as major plot points.
  • Despite the movie's pretext to Demythification, it doesn't commit to it, with Hercules' Super-Strength showing up at points where the movie needs an easy way out of a tight spot. This is especially notable, since the 2005 Hallmark miniseries portrayed it as being a Charles Atlas Superpower brought on by Training from Hell, but this later adaptation gives no such explanation for it.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The sculpted muscles on Hercules's breastplate are smaller than the Rock's actual muscles.

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