Hercules: Zero to Hero

As I had mentioned yesterday, there was another direct-to-video sequel that was only given a VHS release and was never re-released on DVD. I had searched all around for this VHS before finally my cousin said he would order it off of Amazon and he let me borrow it for a bit. This of course is “Hercules: Zero to Hero,” released in 1999.

Tim Brayton said in his review, “In this film-by-film wallow in the depths of Disney's direct-to-video sequels and spinoffs of their more respectable theatrical animated features, I had initially been compelled to skip right over 1999's Hercules: Zero to Hero. Happily - for an extremely specific sense of the word "happy" - reader Todd Draper had my back, and has been able to supply me with a copy of the film, thus saving my from an excruciating gap in my record. Emphasis on "excruciating".”

Actually, this movie isn’t in any way considered, a specifically awful example of the form – it came out a year after “Belle’s Tales of Friendship,” and it’s at least better than that, while filling the same natural role: a collection of episodes from a TV show where a Disney movie was the pilot. Though this movie, as opposed to “Belle’s Tales of Friendship” (and unlike any of the handful of TV collections to come in the future), was made up of four episodes of the “Hercules” cartoon that had already been shown in 1998, making it perhaps the single dirtiest cash-in of them all…actually, nothing could possibly be more disrespectful and low than “Belle’s Tales of Friendship.”

Completely shameless or not, “Zero to Hero” is, as these movies go, a hugely harmless extension of the plot of the weakest 1997 Disney's “Hercules” movie, capturing something of a destroyed version of the same tone and energy, unlike those Direct-to-Video films that have absolutely no connection with their previous movie. Brayton mentioned, “I speak as someone with absolutely no knowledge of the TV show from which this "feature" was culled, mind you, and perhaps it's possible that what's tolerable at an hour and change would be horrible stretched out over 65 half-hour episodes. Thankfully, that's not what we're here to judge.”

The film starts a little after the end of the first movie, as god-turned-demigod-turned-human Hercules (Tate Donovan) – remember, we’re in Disney mythology in this movie, not the actual mythology of the actual ancient Greece – and his new wife Megara (Susan Egan) are moving into their new home. One box that Meg accidentally stumbles across is full of Hercules’s old high school memorabilia – remember, we’re in Disney – and even though Hercules says there is nothing special to see in the box, she still goes to the desolate island home of Hercules’s satyr teacher Philoctetes, this time voiced by Robert Costanzo, where she finally hears the stories of Hercules’s days as an awkward, inept teenager.

Brayton mentioned, “And so, cue the midquel, for the show was, I am given to understand, all about Teen Herc's Misadventures in High School, which sort of doesn't fit in with the movie much at all - the implication, as I picked it up, was that he was already a bumbling adolescent who didn't fit in with the local teens, when he went to be montaged into adulthood by Phil - but Zero to Hero puts in a noble attempt to lacquer over this objection with one of its many irritating faux gospel songs.”

Brayton goes on to say, “The zippy, inventive Alan Menken/David Zippel songs from the original are in no special danger of being replaced in anyone's hearts, I think it's safe to say.” Also, this doesn’t really answer the question of why, exactly, Hercules needed to be in school, but it would be wrong to point that out.

Moving along, Meg’s unwelcome interference into Hercules’s past starts off the three separate episodes, each of them having a runtime of 22 minutes. They’re not really completely far apart of what was going on in the original movie, problems of how well they fit in the continuity nevertheless. Brayton said, “Though I must point out that, in the movie, Hades, god of the underworld, seemed unaware that Hercules still existed through that whole time, and yet here he is, popping up without any fanfare, like he's a recurring villain, or something.” The nice thing is that James Woods was reprised to voice Hades who still does the shaky, creepy energy which he used last time, and the character is by far the best-looking in the entire “Zero to Hero,” given more or less the same expressions of animated creativity that the real movie animation department covered on him.

Yes, this matters because “Zero to Hero” looks, generally, like a movie made on the cheap side of Disney studios put in the smallest amount of money for that movie’s project. We’ll get to that momentarily.

The first story, “Hercules and the First Day of School” is basically exactly what it says in the title: Brayton said it best, “Hercules goes for the first time to Prometheus Academy in Athens, where he meets the usual collection of sub-Hughes types:” unspeakable popular kid Adonis (Diedrich Bader), ridiculous nerd Icarus (French Stewart), and pouty outsider Cassandra (Madonna’s old friend, the ugliest comedian I have ever seen, Sandra Bernhard) are the only ones we really need to know with as far as the movie goes. In an attempt to prove that he can fit in, Hercules tries to beat a monster, the two-headed cyclops Orthus (Brad Garrett from the hit show “Everybody Loves Raymond” and Wayne Knight), ends up demolishing a lot of the school in the process, and doesn’t get any credit for saving the day in any way.

The second story, “Hercules and the Grim Avenger,” tells that Hercules teams up with a mysterious, self-narrating crime fighter (Eric Stoltz) making a joke from the Disney cartoon “Darkwing Duck,” to beat up a raging Minotaur (Worf from “The Next Generation” and “Deep Space Nine,” Michael Dorn). While doing so, Hercules hugely manages to destroy an entire block of the city, and doesn’t get any credit for thrashing the monster.

The third story, “Hercules and the Visit from Zeus,” starts off with Hercules letting all his anger out on his dad, Zeus, voiced by Corey Burton, replacing Rip Torn, and as a result makes the god prove that he can survive something so simple like high school. Zeus turns himself into a mortal for 24 hours, and it turns out to be a complete disaster in the process, while Hades tries to use this opportunity to kill his older brother once and for all. Surprisingly, Hercules does not completely destroy anything or fail, through delay, to prevent something from being destroyed, and he is not dispossessed of credit, on account of not really being responsible for stopping Hades.

Strangely, the framework edging all of this together isn’t original to the video either: it’s the clip show “Hercules and the Yearbook” utilized to flash back to episodes it wasn’t originally flashing back to. Brayton said, “At which point, if I were any kind of fan of the series, I'd be ready to burn the thing to ashes, because that's just dirty in its total lack of dignity.”

In no way of imagination does these episodes say that the “Hercules” TV show was going to be really worth checking out on its own terms, though as a one-time watch, it’s watchable enough: the idea of a high school out of every clichéd TV show about teenagers trying to find its path to ancient Greece is hesitant at best, but then, “Hercules,” the movie, was already such an instable slurry of anachronistic jokes and pop culture sarcasm (though, thankfully, not pop culture reference, and this is mainly absent from “Zero to Hero” as well) that nothing about this concept is honestly broken in a way that “Winnie the Pooh and the Search for Christopher Robin” is, regardless of whether it’s really operational on its own terms or not. In the string of these Disney sequels, failing to violate the spiritual essence of the original in every respect has to count as at least some type of success.

Brayton mentioned, “Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that Zero to Hero is effective on its own merits: it's pretty broad and simplistic in its plotting and characterisation, just like the children's television show that it was; and there's a difference between riffing on Greek myths and then just plain not caring that they ever existed to begin with.” Then there’s the look of the animation, which really does look poor. The number of different studios credited is rather upsetting, and it’s pretty clear that unlike the shows produced mostly in the comforting realms of Walt Disney Television Animation, “Hercules” was something of a cash-cow, going with anybody, anytime. Some of the problems, admittedly, start at a more simple level: the film “Hercules” is among the most highly stylized stories that Walt Disney Feature Animation ever attempted, and the TV producers had a hard time climbing down, so not only do the living characters, Hades excepted, look wrong and inconsistent, the new characters are fairly worried attempts to fit in with the same artistic, and for the most part, they go wrong.

Though Icarus is by far the worst offender, partly because he’s a main character that’s completely unpleasant and even infuriating to look at.

Brayton mentioned, “Design is one thing, animation is another, and the animation here is pretty awful, though not inexplicably so: the days of DuckTales, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin, when Disney was actively concerned with raising the quality of television animation, had by this time been replaced by a cash machine mentality in which all that mattered was getting product out as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible. Not that DuckTales and so on were masterpieces of the form, but they have a basely competence largely absent from Hercules, which is pretty much indistinguishable from any other TV animation in 1998.”

Brayton go on to say, “Still, I have to specially call it out for Megara, who goes off-model more than any other person in any other DTV Disney film we've looked at yet. Seriously, I have no idea what the heck it is with Disney's television productions and female characters, but it's such a pronounced, consistent weak point. And Meg has, to me, such a terrifically appealing design in the movie, the best part of its pleasurably random design mentality, that the things they've done to her here are just that much more frustrating. I apologise in advance for the number of screenshots it took to put that point across, but I defy you to tell me that it's not almost captivating in its badness: this exists, and we are meant to believe that all five of these drawings are of the same woman.”

It’s like a fan-art done by five different people, only the first of whom has re-watched the movie recently, and the fourth who almost positively has also drawn a huge number of Megara in the classical paintings.

Brayton went on to say, “Now, let's not be dumb: Zero to Hero was already going to be at such a low level of accomplishment even relative to other DTV projects that complaining that - lo and behold! - it looks like a lot is really missing the point a lot. I concede that.” That’s not to say that just because something is expected to be far worse than what you can possibly imagine, that doesn’t mean it concludes to be bad. Brayton concluded by saying, “The best I can say is that, unlike a lot of the Disney sequels, I can come up with no reason that Zero to Hero should not exist, just reasons that its existence does none of us any particular good. I am so sad to think that this fact puts it comfortably above the median.”

Now, I say that this film is harmless, but I don’t see a point in making these movie pilots to launch a cartoon series. If you want to check this out, do so. You can get this and “Belle’s Tales of Friendship” at a pretty low price on Amazon. However, I wouldn’t recommend it in anyway, just up to you if you want to watch it and see for yourself.

Oh boy, what a load off. Check in tomorrow for more excitement in “Disney Sequel Month.”