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There were five Action Pack movies starring Kevin Sorbo as Hercules. The fifth movie was a "clips" story, basically a short story interspersed with clips from the first four movies to extend it out. I don't know why they did this since the concept behind the Minotaur story was pretty interesting.
This movie introduced Kevin Sorbo as Hercules, Michael Hurst as Iolaus, and Lucy Lawless as Lysia the Amazon. It's amazing how much the elements of this movie foreshadowed many of the most popular elements of the two series: Hercules and his friend Iolaus travelling into danger; Lucy Lawless as a fierce warrior; scantily clad Amazons cavorting across the countryside in deadly fashion.
There are plenty of spoilers for this movie, so I'll just point you to XENA ONLINE RESOURCES to find the. But there are some interesting points in this movie.
For one thing, Roma (TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL) Downey plays Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. The Hercules of Greek Myth actually seduced Hippolyta in order to gain her girdle as one of his Twelve Labors. Understandably Renaissance will every now and then bring in some of the ancient Greek myths, but this movie seems to take place after the Labors, so one can only wonder how the producers will ever reconcile the incontinuity.
In a mystical way this movie seems to foreshadow other events in the Hercules and Xena chronology as well. For instance, Vanessa Angel was originally chosen to play the warrior princess, Xena. The connection is her name, "Angel" and the name of the series that Roma Downey went on to play in -- since both Lucy and Roma were in this movie, it strikes me as ironic that things turned out the way they did.
However, Roma Downey's series also had a guest-star named Hudson Leick, whom everyone in the Herc and Xenaverse knows as Callisto, the vengeful warrior whose village of Cirrah was destroyed by Xena.
Iolaus dies in this movie. Well, gosh, it seems like everyone dies eventually in Herc and Xena (except Hercules -- he has the distinction of being the only major character who has NOT died -- so far). Poor Iolaus, of course, has been trampled, slammed, stabbed, and murdered in so many ways it's almost expected that he is to die. To be fair, though, Michael Hurst plays the character extremely well -- he has proven he can carry an episode by himself, so it's a bit ironic that he drops out of the movie so early on.
Anthony Quinn plays Zeus in all five movies, and his portrayal of the king of the gods was not quite what I expected. He's a good actor ("great" comes to some people's minds) and all that, but he didn't strike me as a great Zeus. Still, my initial impression of Quinn as Zeus was based on the fourth movie. I hadn't seen the relationship develop between Herc and Zeus through the earlier movies.
This movie introduced Renee O'Connor as the first Deianeira and Robert Trebor as a slave who would not be free. Hercules takes Deianeira to the lost city of Troi (as opposed to "Troy"). I'm not sure if I buy this explanation or not. Deianeira is a lost princess who is searching for her fate, or her role in life. It's an interesting role but I'm glad the character wasn't continued. Somehow, after having seen Renee develop the character of Gabrielle, I felt like this movie didn't really help her realize her potential.
Robert is an extremely talented and funny actor, but his role in this movie was forgettable. Of the five Hercules movies, this one is probably the weakest. But this was an early effort and it's clear that Renaissance was still searching for a solid delivery of the cocept.
That scene in the opening credits for HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS where the serpent comes out of the water and swallows Herc and some girl is taken from this movie. The girl Deianeira. The foreshadowing of things to come in these first two movies is simply incredible, as it's obvious from numerous interviews that Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert really didn't plan the whole thing out with the two series and all.
Note that this movie is actually based on one of the Hercules myths, although it is Poseidon who sends the sea-serpent to eat the princess rather than Hera in the myth. The princess is not named but her father was King Laomedon of Troy. After Hercules killed the serpent he gave the princess to his friend Telamon of Salamis, who had helped him. Telamon presumably married the princess.
This is probably the best of the five movies, and this is (of course) the last one I watched for the first time. I went out and bought the video tape when they hit the stores just so I could finally see it. Anthony Quinn gave his best performance as Zeus in this movie. He had passion, he had intrigue, he had Hercules wondering what the heck was going on. When Zeus walks into that fire at the end, the relationship suddenly becomes believable.
This is also the movie that introduced Tawny Kitaen as the second Deianeira, Herc's wife. We also briefly get to see Lisa Chappell, a very talented actress who will (hopefully) some day come into her own. Kevin originally expressed regret that the character of Deianeira was written out of the series (so Herc could develop love interests on his "legendary" journeys), but I suspect that the way things turned out for him with Sam Jenkins, that was just a passing regret.
The scene in the opening credits for the series where Herc rises from a large group of Hera's soldiers is taken from this movie. This one scene is the only part of the movie I don't really like all that much. The set seems too cheap, and perhaps the fabled bamboo scaffold has something to do with that.
One of the best lines in the movie, however, comes from this scene. Herc accidentally knocks Hera's holy brazier into a pool of water and looking down at what he's done he says, "Oops". It's an indication that he knows Hera will NOT let it go unnoticed.
Note that in Greek myth Deianeira was Hercules' second wife (his first having been the princess Megara of Thebes -- Hera drove Herc mad and he killed Megara and their children -- as penance he had to perform the Twelve Labors). Hercules fought the river-god Achelous for the hand of Deianeira. Achelous turned into a bull and charged Hercules, but Hercules grabbed him, subdued him, and broke off one of his horns.
This was the first Hercules movie I was able to see. I watched it on television during its last rebroadcast. I was pretty fascinated by the centaurs, fell in love with Tawny Kitaen, and was rather impressed with Marlee Shelton.
I wasn't all the impressed with the concept. I don't know why. The story just didn't appeal to me that much. I remember being disappointed when Deianeira plunged off the cliff, and even more so when she was resurrected -- but I hadn't yet learned that it's real tough to die for real in the Hercules and Xena universe.
This movie, however, incorporated some of the elements of Greek myths. The Centaur Nessus operated a ferry, and when he gave passage to Deianeira soon after her marriage to Hercules he fell in love with her. Deianeira of course refused Nessuss' advances, angering him. When the Centaur attacked Deianeira Hercules killed him. With his dying words Nessus told Deianeira to soak her cloak in his blood so that she could use it to keep Hercules faithful. Years later Hercules killed King Eurytis and sacked his city. He took a young maiden, Iole, who was very beautiful. Deianeira heard that Hercules had fallen in love with Iole. In fact he was faithful, but Deianeira sent her cloak to him and when he put it on he was encased in agony. That was the event which led Hercules to kill himself, and when his follower Philoctetes lit his funeral pyre Hercules' mortal half was burned away. Of course, that didn't happen in this movie. The movie was just a bit too bizarre in some places to suit my tastes.
Iolaus (whom we haven't seen or heard of since the first movie) returns. He has learned martial arts from some oriental master and this is where Michael Hurst starts to really develop the character. His wife Ania, whom we met in the first movie, is now dead.
We learn something more about Zeus in this movie, too. By now his relationship with Hercules has been established, and it's interesting to see that Zeus has other children, other relationships which are at least as pained and tormented as his relationship with Hercules.
It's really a pity, I think, that they couldn't keep Quinn on as Zeus for the series. A big star is an expense a young series can seldom afford, so Anthony was out, and we've so far seen Zeus in only one episode of the series (played by someone else).
One of the oddities about this movie is that Iolaus is a widower and has one or more kids! Okay, this is old news to many of you. But imagine my surprise when I was first told about this movie. Iolaus the womanizer married and settled down. Talking about changing diapers, too! Boy, howdy, there is a scene or two in this movie which just doesn't feel right if you've been following the series.