Hercules in New York

This actually looks more like "Hercules in Fear City"

Total Recall! Predator! Terminator! Commando! Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for his fantastic action-packed movies and this film Hercules in New York may be the most awesome of all. We unearthed this movie, Arnold's debut, at the Mecca of Movies, Pathmark. Seriously, you can not go wrong with Patmark's movie section. We don't know about the food part of the store though. Regardless, Arnold plays Hercules and really sells the role well. Anyone else might've overacted or made the character seem more...overzealous than the master, Arnold. In the original film, released in 1969, Arnold was overdubbed because the studio believed his accent to be thick. Well we can say having watched the DVD with Arnold's original audio track, that his accent wasn't thick enough! People might also say that Arnold's acting was a bit stiff, but it makes perfect sense. If you were a superstrong Greek god, you would feel so detached from humanity and be bored running around Manhattan.

"AH'M TIRED'OV MOUH-TUH OLYMPUZ!"

The film begins with an exciting narration: "In a time when myth and mystery merged into mystery"! Now, Dennis made the point that "myth and mystery" haven't merged then, instead myth has assimilated into mystery. He then further demonstrated his point using some NesQuik powder and a glass of milk. Then he drank it.... Hercules is bored with Mt. Olympus and who can blame him? According to the set design, Mt. Olympus consists of Zeus' chair and Zeus' magic TV ball. Zeus gets ticked off at Hercules' constant whining and "explodes with anger" and hurls Hercules to Earth. He hops a freighter to New York and the hilarity ensues. The sailors try to make ol' Herc work on the ship, but Hercules works for no man. Instead he beats them all up.

It takes 2 guys using their arms in unison
to choke Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When the ship comes to port, Hercules ditches that ship resulting in another attack by the sailors. Apparently, the captain believed Herc to be a slave aboard the ship. Herc's not having any of it though. He beats everyone up, right in front of the greatest characters ever shown on the silver screen: Pretzie.

Pretzie: because "Joe" or "Bill" are names in lesser movies

Pretzie is a pretzel salesman. That's how he gets his name. He's got a basket of pretzels with him, but after we learn why he's called "Pretzie", we never see that basket again. Now we know what everyone is thinking. Pretzie sucks. Just look at him. You can just hear his little nasaly voice and you haven't even seen the movie. We felt the same way too. However, Pretzie won our hearts. He's just a lonely little guy and Herc's friendship makes him feel like he's somebody. That's touching. Freakin' Pretzie pullin' on our heart strings.

"AH LIKE YOU, PRETZIE.
DAT'Z WHY AH'M GONNA KILL YOU LAST"

Uh... Pretzie helps Herc around New York. Herc enjoys the Big Apple but uses every opportunity to prove how much cooler he is than any mortal. It's bad enough he's Arnold Schwarzenegger standing next to a shrimp like Pretzie, he's gotta show everyone up as well. He even outperforms the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team in Central Park, which is where we get my second favorite character ever produced on screen, Professor Camden.

Camden, NJ is a notoriously shady city and we can't help but be influenced by our proximity to Camden. In reality, Prof. Camden is a nice guy with a hot daughter, but in the back of our minds, we're just waiting for Prof. Camden to shank Pretzie and rob him. We're not even really sure what his role in the movie was. Speaking for myself, whenever he spoke on screen, another voice played in my head and overrode his actual lines. It was all bad stuff too. Like he might've said "Oh that Hercules is so strong" but in my head, Prof. Camden was saying "Nobody sells any coke in this town without Daddy getting a taste".

The nefarious Professor Camden plots to destroy Hercules

As the movie progresses, Pretzie gets Herc to start a wrestling career so they can get that money. Of course, they make a little too much money and pretty soon, the mob comes in to collect. Now Herc's wrestling for them. But Herc's too busy with Miss Camden, daughter of Professor Camden. She's all giddy for superstrong guys but not too bright. She fails to realize that Hercules is THE Hercules. He's not even trying to hide it!

Hercules takes every opportunity to prove he's Hercules. Here he is proving why the actor
featured on the poster behind him is not Hercules.

 On one date in Central Park, a grizzly bear escapes and interrupts Herc's date. Bad move, bear. What comes next is the single greatest battle between man and animal ever filmed. Forget King Kong. Forget Aliens. Herc and that bear fight to the death! Neither one giving an inch, neither one surrendering.

"GUARRGHGHARGAGHGH"

Around this time, Juno, Zeus' wife who hates Herc, steals Herc's strength. Real bad news for ol Herc and Pretzie. They just put a huge bet on Herc winning a weight-lifting competition. If they lose, the mob's gonna ice 'em! And guess what? They do lose. What results is a awe-inspiring chariot/car chase across New York. In the end, Zeus returns Hercules' strength, reasoning that "no mortal will ever best a son of Zeus!". Hercules quickly kills the mob. It's not shown on screen, but c'mon. We can infer. And so, Hercules and Pretzie return to their normal bachelor lives....we wish. In fact, Hercules decides to return to Mt. Olympus without even saying good-bye to Pretzie. And here's where our hearts broke. That's right! Broke! You may think we're hardened men watching movies like Dracula 3000 and Fear City... We thought we were too actually. But Pretzie returns to his apartment alone. We're a little concerned because he sorta develops a problem with alcohol after the mob threaten him way back when. He's so depressed as he pines over Hercules and how he's gonna go back to being a lonely schmuck selling pretzels down at the docks. We sat on the edge of our seats, praying the movie wasn't going to take a dramatic shift and end with Pretzie's suicide. Luckily, Herc uses his radio station atop Mt. Olympus and tells Pretzie through his radio that he'll be back whenever he wants to hang out. A happy ending!

"AHTENTION PRETZIE! DIS IZ HERCULES! AH'M
INZIDE DAH RAY-DE-OH!

We loved Hercules in New York  and are holding out for a sequel. Now's the time! We've actually prepared a rough draft for a script. Ok... here goes... Professor Camden wants to steal Hercules' strength with a giant laser and he knows the only way to lure Herc down from Mt. Olympus is to threaten Pretzie's life! That's good, right? Oh and guess what? Professor Camden has a partner. Oh don't worry, it's nothing too serious... Just a grizzly bear ghost! A grizzly bear ghost of the one Herc kills in the aforementioned film! It could happen... As soon as we mail the script out to L.A. Until next time!