The Sword and Sandals genre is stupid and goofy and I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid, even if it makes a complete hash of the mythology.
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Honestly these were my introduction to them! Along with Hercules And Xena The Animated Movie.
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All these Hercules movies blur together for me. So much that I clicked on this topic and said to myself haven’t we don’t this one already?? 
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Ok, new brilliant plan! We take all the Hercules movies, split them up around the host segments, then have a randomiser put them back together every time you play it. That way you get a new Hercules movie every time! You could even randomise which host segments go into it.
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This is the last Hercules experiment to cover and the first in the series oddly enough. The beginning and the end all at once.
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Steve Reeves is back as Hercules. But not really, since this is technically the first Hercules movie he appeared in. While a bunch of myths and original material are stitched together as is typical with these Sword & Sandal films, the main plot focuses on the quest for the Golden Fleece. Also standard operating procedure is that liberties are taken with the source material, even when considering how different tellings from ancient times can be inconsistent on the details. One of the more notable instances is how the serpent/dragon that guards the Fleece looks more like a T. Rex. There’s also a random encounter with Amazons during the voyage.
The biggest issue is not with the movie itself, but how it was cut to fit in the MST3K time slot. These Sword & Sandal films are among the longest to be featured on the show, with Hercules clocking in at an hour and forty-seven minutes in its original form. As a result, it’s hard to discern if a plot oversight is caused by the inopportune edit of a key bit of exposition or merely ineptitude on the screenwriter’s part.
Host segments are an odd lot. Crow’s one-man Match Game show is quite bizarre, especially when it takes a sudden morose turn. Sometime after seeing it, I came across 1970s-era Match Game episodes online. I found that Crow’s impression of Brett Somers was so bad…
“How bad was it?”
It was so bad that, combined with the androgyny of the name, I thought Brett Somers was supposed to be a man. A bit more nasal and a bit less smoker’s voice would have made it more convincing. At least his takes on Charles Nelson Reilley and Nipsy Russell were passable. The best one was when they were visited by a pair of Amazons in their space minivan, hilariously portrayed by Bridget and Mary Jo as Midwestern soccer moms. Though considering the high percentage of people of Scandinavian descent in that region, you’d think that characterization would be more appropriate for Valkyries.
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Herculezzzzzzz… This one is another episode that should have been great but which just seems to plod along a lot. Ieola is a total dish, but otherwise the only thing that really sticks out is evil Lincoln being the most obvious “Why do they keep this guy around?” characters in a long time.
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Having just rewatched this, I have got to admit that Steve is really giving the role some gusto here. I don’t know how much was direction or just the script, but this Hercules is kinda really into the fighting. As opposed to the earlier…er, later films where he seems like he can’t be bothered most of the time. This Herc is ready to kill and knock some pillars over.
They say, if you enjoy what you do…
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