4. Hercules

Another Dwayne Johnson movie about swords and wizards? Yeah, but this one is straight-up terrible. This week, Brian and Hemal watch ‘Hercules’ – and they are not pleased about it.

Director Brett Ratner seems to specialize in the lowest common denominator filmmaking, and this is certainly that. ‘Hercules’ features one inspired act of casting – get the biggest, mightiest actor to play the iconically biggest and mightiest hero of Greek myth – but not much else.

An almost cynical exercise in giving the audience nothing to challenge or interest them, the movie strips the original tale of all its darkness and emotional weight, takes the story out of the realm of the supernatural, and then – an insult to injury – doesn’t even give us cool fight scenes.

There’s a host of other great actors on board, including ​​Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Rebecca Ferguson, and John Hurt, but none of them are given much to do other than shout corny dialogue and be indistinguishable from one another. Even The Rock is wasted here, as the movie is interested solely in his physique, not his performance or humor. The dude doesn’t even get a sword.