PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*
Some of Italy's "Maciste" films were given "Hercules" marketing in the titles alone, while the hero's original name was used in the English dub. This time, the dub is consistent with the title, so that the Caucasian warrior is called Hercules throughout the movie, and at one point he even claims kinship with a heavenly father. However, this version of Hercules shows only an uncanny level of strength.
Hercules gets shipwrecked and ends up in South America. He meets a friendly Inca warrior, Maytha (Guiliano Gemma) and they hang out while Maytha, a prince of a local province, tells the stranger all about how he's leading a small army in revolt against the realm's capital of Tiahuanaco. The leader of the sacrificial cult is King Atahualpa, and Maytha hopes to end the evil monarch's practice of blood sacrifice. Hercules, who immediately decides that Maytha must be a good guy, decides to lend his expertise to the revolt.
Maytha also happens to have a pretty sister, Hamara (Anna Maria Pace), whom Atahualpa hopes to marry even though he already has a queen (a distinctly minor character who gets tossed aside very easily). In this routine film's only good scene, Hamara, marked for sacrifice after refusing the king, lies positioned on a slab while brightly feathered archers shoot arrows at her. Then Hercules rescues her, earning the love of Hamara and the enmity of the Inca king.
SONS is pedestrian in the extreme, and even ideologues looking to carp at such films for "white savior" tropes would barely find anything to rant about. (There is a scene in which Hercules introduces the rebel Incas to the use of wheels, the better to build mobile siege engines, but the script doesn't exploit this development.) Performances are ordinary, with Pace distinguishing herself as one of the least charismatic peplum-heroines ever, so that only a handful of fight-scenes provide some diversion from the tedium.
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