Hercules and Xena - The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus

I'm not saying it's devoid of good points - the original cast members furnish their characters' voices; it's only 76 minutes long; and lots of Joseph LoDuca's unoriginal but rousing music from the two shows is tracked in as underscore.

But that's it.

John Loy's script completely misses the spirit of the live-action shows (tellingly, he never wrote for either "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" or "Xena: Warrior Princess"); the inclusion of three (bad) songs is pointless and irritating, especially the one sung by the Titans; and the animation is, quite simply, appalling - from the giant sea creature that keeps changing colour during the opening battle with Hercules to draughtsmanship that achieves the remarkable feat of making Gabrielle look ugly (when she hasn't been turned into an eagle... poor Renee O'Connor. Then again, she gets the least dialogue in the bad script), this is cheap animation without any of the charm that other cheapskate cartoons can have.

Not that the Disney version of "Hercules" didn't have any flaws of its own, but it's streets ahead of this one in all respects; if the parent shows were as bad as this one (and some people say they are), they would have been about as successful as "The Adventures of Sinbad."

Well, okay, maybe we didn't expect musical numbers, of which one, "We're the Titans," is exceedingly bad (We're the Titans - boom chucka lucka lucka - boom chucka lucka") although the others are okay.

Basically it's a big-budget version of a Hercules episode (even the CGI of the show couldn't sustain these monstrous fights). The problem is, they didn't want to seem to spend _any_ budget on the animation. Minimalist backgrounds and crudely drawn figures might be some kind of stylistic statement. Then again, it might just be cheap animation. The characters themselves are rather grotesque: Xena has a odd reddish streak in her hair, while Herc is grotesque: one scenes has his veins literally bulging out of his arms during a moment of extreme exertion. As Aphrodite would put it, "Gross!"

Even the plot is pretty minimalistic: doesn't Olympus have more than 5 gods?? It's nice that they got Kevin Smith for the always sneaky Ares (and Alexandra Tydings as Aphrodite, although her character has nothing to do), and there are some funny kid-type moments (the Olympians being turned into farm animals). Generally, though, it's a lot grimmer than the Hercules series: closer in tone to a Xena "serious" episode. Of course, there's no real continuity with the series, either, which has never had Alcmene head off to live with Zeus before her series death.

Basically, H&X ain't bad as a kiddy flick, and die-hard fans of the series, which the movie apparently caters to, probably won't be disappointed. But other than that, there's not much to recommend it.

This is an animated spin-off from the two TV series featuring Hercules and Xena, where they, along with sidekicks Iolaus and Gabrielle, try to save Zeus, Aries, Artemis and Aphrodite on Mount Olympus from the Titans.

The story-line is somewhat average and less exciting than most episodes of the TV shows and the animation is very amateurish. There isn't much character development or chemistry among each of the cast members, but there are plenty of action - from the Hercules battling a dragon to Xena using her Chakram against a band of warlords, and from the Gods against the Titans to our heroes trying to save villagers caught in the middle of the feud.

The characters are voiced by the original actors from the TV shows, which gives the movie a more familiar feel and brings you back into the Hercules and Xena universe. That is what I think the best element of the movie as the voices helped maintain each of the characters' familiar personalities. A large part of the movie, though, suffers from limited suspense and spirit. I also personally would have liked to see Gabrielle, Iolaus and Aphrodite utilized more - they looked like they were just thrown in for good measure.

Overall, kids may like the movie, but true fans of the TV shows probably would be taken aback a little.

Grade C-

Animation offers the opportunity for film makers to throw off the constraints of live action and produce creative, intelligent and original work. See the Simpsons and The Iron Giant for examples.

That opportunity has been badly squandered here. The bursts of genuine genius and joi de vive that typify the live action originals are gone. Instead we are left with a mediocre slog that would have been tiresome without the breathtakingly appalling animation that makes "He-Man" look cutting edge.

Who did the animation for this movie? A Kindergarden class? The background was done in like two colours the entire movie! And the two colours were poorly used as well. I was very disappointed with this film.