Hercules Returns
(1993)
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Hercules Returns follows in the footsteps of Woody Allen's What's Up Tiger Lily by totally re-voicing, revamping and revitalising this muscle bound epic. Film buff Brad McBain, a frustrated employee of Australia's largest cinema chain The Kent Corporation, decides to set up on his own and re-open a palatial disused cinema to show classic old films. He chooses the last picture that the cinema featured, Hercules, Samson, Machismo and Ursus Are Invincible, but when the print arrives at the grand gala opening it is in unsubtitled Italian. This calls for desperate measures, and McBain, his projectionist and his publicist are forced to improvise voice-overs themselves with hilarious results that bring the house down! Beautiful bodies, baby oil and muscles abound in this outrageous, side-splitting Australian re-run of the old Italian sword and scandal classic, featuring Hercules as a cabaret artist, his true love Labia, Samson as a wimp and Testiculi, a regular at the Pink Parthenon nightclub in Climidia. |
A one-joke film — but a joke that's so good it just about sustains the whole running time of the film. David Argue, Bruce Spence and Mary Coustas are battling to reopen a classic cinema, much to opposition of slimy businessman Michael Carman, who plots to destroy their opening night by providing them with an Italian version of an old Hercules epic. It falls to the intrepid trio to provide all the voices themselves. The plotting is tenuous, but the redubbed beefcake epic is a constant delight.