Pan From Olympus: A Herculean Tsk

Maybe, in its waning moments, the new TV version of "Hercules" actually has a message for modern audiences. After wearing himself to a hulking frazzle completing one exhausting task or another (fighting monsters, mostly), Hercules finally puts his foot down.

"I'm tired of others telling me what the gods want," he grumps, and justifiably. Could this be a commentary on the separation of church and state, something that's become a vital issue again during the reign of George W. Bush? Maybe that is a stretch, but at least it helps give "Hercules" some reason to exist.

The film, from Hallmark Entertainment, airs tonight at 8 on Channel 4 in a three-hour time slot, though without commercials the story isn't much more than two hours long.

It's an odd time for NBC to show a first-run spectacular, because the network usually does well in the ratings on Monday nights anyway, and networks usually hesitate to disrupt established hits for one-time specials. But if we browse through tonight's schedule we see that, aha, there's another mighty muscleman (ratings-wise), on CBS: It's the night that network and the nation say goodbye to "Everybody Loves Raymond."

The last night of a longtime hit is a hard nut to crack with competitive programming, so NBC may just be using "Hercules" as a sacrifice play. It doesn't seem to have been heavily ballyhooed, a sign that NBC is saying, "Oh, what's the use?" Hercules may be strong, but he's no Ray Romano.

Anyway, the adventure film, executive-produced by the father-son team of Robert Halmi Sr. and Jr., benefits from elaborate and impressive special effects as the computer-animation boys attempt to create a mythological world that never really existed. It was, says the narrator at the outset, "an age outside history . . . a time of myth and fantasy, a time of many gods and one great hero, the time of -- Hercules!"

Wowie! But as the film starts, it's a time of anarchy -- of dizzying camera jiggles and unidentified characters in a storm at sea. It's all bewildering, as if the movie was the victim of last-minute editing to make it shorter. Then suddenly it turns into, of all things, Stanley Kubrick's inscrutable final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," as a chorus of cuties wearing gold goat masks fondle a poor sap whose fate seems to be as a sacrifice to the gods. The gods prefer human sacrifice to any other form of entertainment. Of course, they didn't have karaoke then.

Instead of killing the man, the nymphs merrily blind him, and he wanders away, turning up later as a soothsayer who, if he were alive today, would probably have a weekly sooth column in the National Enquirer.

Hercules doesn't appear until about 20 minutes into the picture, and then he's one of two babies, one a super-tot and the other a mere mortal doomed to be -- yes -- sacrificed to the gods. Timothy Dalton and Elizabeth Perkins are mutteringly awful as the parents, Perkins wearing a long puss through the whole ordeal. Mom and Pop get a little nudge about which baby is half-god when they find him juggling deadly snakes in his crib.

As a young man, while being taught the humanities by his chubby pal Linus (Sean Astin, sidekick to the hero, just as in the "Lord of the Rings" films), Hercules sees a sleazy satyr -- half-man, half-goat -- menacing a damsel in distress. Hercules whacks him with a lyre and is soon told his real father is not Timothy Dalton but Zeus, by Zeus!

Hercules is played with a neighborly bonhomie by Paul Telfer, and he certainly meets the physical requirements of the role -- which makes it surprising that he spends so little time with his shirt off. This will be a disappointment to viewers who, when they see "Hercules" in the title, and especially as the title, are primed for a display of prime-time prime beef.

Everyone seems to want to kill hunky Herk, most threateningly a big tall goon named Antaeus, played by Tyler Mane. We also meet the Hydra, the Oracle of Delphi, the Cretan Bull -- and other mythological beasties brought to life with computer magic. You won't see Cerberus, the three-headed dog that hangs out at the River Styx, however; Hercules explains that it's really just a man holding a skull. Bummer.

Hercules supposedly lived on through eternity, so it's perhaps appropriate that the film feels endless. It's worth watching just to get a load of Leelee Sobieski's mahogany tan, however; she plays the hero's girlfriend and partner in heroics. "Hercules" has a bit of splash now and then, and acres of gorgeous New Zealand scenery, but when you get right down to it, "cretin bull" pretty much sums up the whole thing.

Hercules (three hours) airs tonight at 8 on Channel 4.