‘Hercules’ aims low and delivers

It is hard to make a bad Hercules movie, because badness -- of a sort that in practical terms often translates to something akin to goodness -- is inextricably woven into the fabric of the genre. As long as there is a bit of whomping, and the occasional glint of light on a manly pectoral, and suggestion of Sylvan female nudity, you’ll be all right. The three-hour “Hercules” that NBC will unleash tonight on the whole of its prime time, though it strains the natural length of the form, certainly hits those marks. It is neither the worst nor the best of its kind, and the fact that it really is no good at all does not stand in the way of its being completely watchable.

The only possible aesthetic sin in such a business is to be boring -- it’s no problem if, as is the case here, the dialogue is overripe, the special effects look cheap and the mythology has been sliced and diced and folded with new and surprising ingredients. In fact, the more so, the better. In modern usage, Hercules, like Samson or Superman, is a dramatically adaptable good-guy strongman, who may be set to whatever task is convenient, wherever the writer wants to put him. He’s been animated, syndicated, Schwarzeneggered, Steve Reevesed and Kevin Sorboed and will be none the worse tomorrow for good-looking, appropriately sculpted Paul Telfer’s two-gear performance tonight or in the way he’s been recast as a kind of Robin Hood revolutionary-cum-muscle-bound hippie Utopian.

Even so, the current edition, from tireless producer Robert Halmi Sr. of the classics-illustrating Hallmark Brand -- he has already had his way with “The Odyssey,” “Gulliver’s Travels” and countless other volumes from the 5-foot shelf of great books -- uses the ancient sources more than most, which makes its continual wholesale departures from them seem more outrageous than they otherwise might. Like most Halmi productions, his “Hercules” has “something to say” that the author (or in this case the culture) had not originally imagined -- here, as it often has before, it has something to do with modern notions of self-empowerment. (“You will be a hero; you’ll find the strength within yourself. God is in you,” stepfather Timothy Dalton tells him, just before expiring.) And yet the more seriously the film takes itself, the more it tries to take a tragic tone, the sillier it is. Yet the sillier it is, the more it begs to be talked back to, out loud, and there is something to be said for this kind of engagement, whether it was originally intended or not.

It also seems to want to say something about religious intolerance and the advantages of a direct relationship with God unmediated by a possibly self-serving priestly caste. “I’m tired of others telling me what the gods want; I’ll be my own oracle and speak to them myself,” says Hercules, who is posited here as a pioneer of modern New Age pantheism, someone who is above sectarianism, who swears by Zeus and by Hera alike, and sees divinity in “my fellow beings, the animals, the mountains and seas and green Earth, the sky” and so on. He is also an advocate of mixed marriage, though (as you will see) this did not work for his parents at all.

I’m not altogether sure there isn’t some sly cheesiness intended here -- when Hercules goes down to Hades looking to capture Cerberus, its three-headed guard dog, it’s an old-school fun-house hell he encounters, with flashing fire and strewn skulls and papier-mache stalactites that, snapped off, prove handy clubs. And there’s almost no other way to explain lines like “Thracian dog!” and “I am invincible” and “Where’s your precious mud now?” except as tributes to the translated dialogue of old Italian sword-and-sandal films. (It’s hard not to hear those dubbed voices in your head, watching this.) Ideally, it should be seen on a Saturday afternoon in a nearly empty theater, with a lot of popcorn and candy at hand, to keep the energy up in the dull bits. (And it would not hurt to be 12 years old.) But you will have to make do with your television and present age.

Somehow maintaining their dignity amid all this are Elizabeth Perkins (adopting the English accent that says “Ancient Greece” to contemporary ears) as Hercules’ mother; Leelee Sobieski, sometimes barebacked and as bronzed as a pair of baby shoes as his nymph (which is not to say nymphet) girlfriend; and Sean Astin, getting another New Zealand vacation as Linus, Hercules’ music teacher, sidekick and intentional comic relief. (It is a long way down from Sam Gamgee.) Six-foot-10 Tyler Mane, also known as Big Sky, brings the flavor of professional wrestling to his role as Hercules’ nemesis, Antaeus -- his nemesis and something more, something (out of Sophocles by way of George Lucas) that makes the movie that’s gone before seem even more ridiculous than it already has. Which, ultimately, doesn’t matter at all.

*

‘Hercules’

Where: NBC

When: 8 to 11 tonight.

Ends: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14)

Paul Telfer...Hercules

Sean Astin...Linus

Leelee Sobieski...Deianeira

Elizabeth Perkins...Alcmene

Executive producers Robert Halmi Sr., Robert Halmi Jr. Writer Charles Edward Pogue. Director Roger Young.