Mike_Noga The mighty Sons of Hercules would thunder through the years, these men of steel would never feel the curse of a coward's fears!!!" Apparently all these Sons of Hercules movies open with the same song, which goes on and on about how strong and noble and bulgey all Herc's boys have become. Wow can you imagine what a pain in the butt Hercules' annual Christmas letter must have been? i.e." Young Lothar is at the tops of his class in bull wrestling and he's hefting boulders at a 7th grade level." Plus what pressure it must have put on any of Herc's less macho sons. What about Blaine, the quiet one who favors his mother, writes poetry and likes to mend the wings of small injured birds? Where does he fit into the Hercules family scheme of things? Eh, let's just enjoy the movie.Once the peppy ballad is finished we see Ulysses on the deck of a ship talking about how happy he is to finally get home after years and years of expending Trojans. You get a bad impression of him right off because he is wearing a sweat stained old vest, with no shirt underneath, that looks like he wore it under his armor EVERY DAY during the entire Trojan War. Kinda reminds me of some of the scarier guys who hang around the bus station out in Hollywood.Cut to Herc's son, Pericles, who is arguing with his gal pal Helen about their relationship. (His dad would have just stalked off and gone Hydra hunting with the boys.) He tells her he has to book on a mission for God, in this case, Jupiter. He can't hang around talking chick stuff, so off he goes to capture Ulysses, whom the gods want to punish for blinding Neptune's son Polpyhemus the Cyclops. Perky leaves Helen to be romanced by some suave looking SOB who is standing in the wings and twirling his mustachioes like a Doric Snidely Whiplash. This is especially bad because Perky is anything but suave.Perky hops a ship and gets the crew to capture Ulysses while he lounges around looking like he's posing for a statue. The ship captain assures Perky that Ulysses cannot escape the many many bonds they have placed on the king of Ithaca, which is a cue for Ulysses to instantly slip his bonds and escape. To cover his escape he sets the ship afire and dives overboard.Perky offers a pot of gold to anyone who catches the wily Greek king, so all the sailors abandon their attempts to put out the raging deck fire on the ship, which quickly burns to ashes, leaving them all stranded miles and miles out at sea. Ulysses punches out the sailors who don't drown while chasing him and makes it to shore. Perky is right behind and catches Ulysses after he trips over an inconveniently placed sand dune. He doesn't have long to gloat though, since both men are attacked by a small army of bizarre cawing dudes dressed like blue birds. Our heroes are bundled and trundled off to see the Queen. She's dressed like a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, (Appropriate since the Greek playwright Aristophanes and his collaborator Limpwristophanes, invented musical theater.) The boys try to talk the Queen into letting them go free but to no avail. Sorry she says, but I need to sacrifice you to our God, the Giant Vulture that lives in the woods. How disappointing for the fellas.Overnight the two get to talking and bond a little. Ulysses explains to Perky that they might influence the Queen if they play the playuh with her, Socrates-style. The Queen is a golden tressed hottie, so the next morning when she visits her prisoners it's not hard for them to chat her up. She digs it but essentially tells them" Sorry, but Giant Vulture God gotta eat!" Thanks to a sharp plan on Ulysses behalf, a convenient lightening bolt and a savage spring shower, the birdmen are temporarily driven off and the brawny duo escape.This is where Pericles proves that his momma didn't slap him enough. Once they've safely escaped thanks to Ulysses planning, Perky re-captures him with a sucker punch and trusses him up for delivery to Neptune's justice. What a total tool, right? Through some inexplicable plot contrivances the two become separated and wind up working for opposing warring kings. When they are eventually reunited.... well I'll leave some mystery for you.This was an entertaining entry in the sword and sandals genre. Georges Marchal who played Ulysses gives one of the best on-screen portrayals of that character I've ever seen. He plays Ulysses as intelligent, noble, polished and worldly. He's a perfect mentor for young Perky, who is played as a little too impulsive and perhaps naive for his own good. Perky is played ably by Mike Lane who did A lot of TV including the role of Frank N. Stein in the TV series The Monster Squad. There is a strong chemistry between the two heroes and I would have liked to have seen the movie focus a little more on their relationship. That's what mainly sets this apart from the host of Hercules epics striding boldly around out there. After it was over I found myself wishing for a sequel.

windypoplar Ulysess versus Heracles is a good example of Italian sword and sandal epics. Ignore the really bad dubbing, they don't seem to realize Mike Lane is playing Hercules and not his son, and you'll see a fun film. Georges Marchal isn't known to me, but he's quite good at Ulysess.Ulisee has offended the Gods and Heracles is sent to punish him. They encounter some crazed bird-men who are ruled by a beautiful queen, check the outfits on this one! Then Ulisee is captured by a crazed Tyrant who rules over cave-men and its up to Herc to rescue him. The scene of ulisee nearly being crushed by a descending stone ceiling is very well done.Near the end, Ulisee shows his honor and saves Herc's girl from certain death, even when he has the chance to escape and get back to his faithful Penelope. Impressed, Hercules implores his Father, Zeus, to forgive Ulysses. Its one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard in a movie like this. Lane and Marchal are excellent, the girls are pretty and the film moves rather well. Lane plays Herc as strong, but not invincible, which helps. A lot of fun.

Maciste_Brother ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is not an easy Peplum to review. It does stand out from the endless batch of Italian action films starring beefy actors. ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES has a definitely different tone to it though, a more French feel to it than most Sword & Sandal films. There's a lot of action and there are monsters and weird creatures and such. You know, typical Peplum ingredients but the film is very wordy. It relies a lot on dialogue and word play between the characters, which is typically French. Also the actor who plays Ulysses, French actor Georges Marchal, is unmistakably French looking. These differences actually makes this one stand-out from the rest of the pack.But even with these original aspects, is it great? Well, good but not great (maybe with a better DVD transfer, it would fall into the great category). It IS very entertaining, rarely boring and sorta admirable that these guys did try to do something different but the whole package is most definitely uneven.The story is about Heracles(played by 6'8" tall Mike Lane) trying to bring Ulysses to justice, for some actions which took place before the film began. At one point, Heracles has Ulysses "handcuffed" to him and the two men go through their journey bound together, like in THE DEFIANT ONES.There are some moments which are thrilling unto themselves but there are a lot cheesy ones too. The stand out "bizarre" scene here is a dance number (what's with Sword & Sandal films and kooky dance sequences?) where the two heroes, tied to a tree, are being terrorized by an army of effeminate looking men who are dressed up as birds and do these peculiar dance moves. Imagine those scary flying monkeys in THE WIZARD OF OZ grouped together and they start dancing like they're in a Buster Berkley number and they try to kill the beefy heroes by pecking and scratching them to death. The dance sequence is out of this world bizarre. One has to see it to believe it. It's so bizarre that I love it.There are other stand-out scenes but nothing beats that one. As I already mentioned, some fighting scenes are pretty good. For instance, the one at the climax between Marchal and exploitation great Gabriele Tinti is remarkably effective. The one on the boats is also good (the special effects are obvious though). There's also a fairly suspenseful "walls coming down to crush the hero" bit. But even with all the action, the story relies more on dialogue than action. Some of the dialogue is pretty bad, certainly during love scenes. The two heroes trying to woe that beautiful but out-of-place playboy bunny Bird Woman; the romance scenes on a whole are embarrassing, including the one when Heracles and Ulysses talk about love. But other bits of dialogue are actually clever and even thought provoking (a Peplum that's thought provoking?). The battle of wits between Ulysses and King Laro is truly memorable and fun. The production values are not the greatest. The makeup fx of the cavemen is pretty bad. There are only a few sets. The set for King Laro, with that huge face behind Laro's throne, is memorable. The continuity is filled with errors, but this might be due to US distributors editing the original version for US audiences. The direction sometimes creates suspense and tension, which is no mean feat considering we're talking about a Peplum here. The score is good. Another plus is Georges Marchal as Ulysses. I really like Marchal as an actor. He's one of the best actors to play a mythical hero and has a truly striking presence.Like I said, not an easy film to review, ULYSSES AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES is different than the usual Sword & Sandal stuff and I appreciated it for its many original aspects. Personally speaking, even with all of its obvious faults, at a certain level, I find this much more satisfactory than the much heralded COLOSSUS OF RHODES. It's worth watching.

dbborroughs Jupiter sends Heracles (yes thats right, its not Hercules) to get Ulysses and bring him to the cyclops for his little blinding trick. Its an odd film as what should be the adventures or two heroes are enemies for most of it. Somewhere along the lines they get captured by bird people and find their lady loves. The first 45 minutes constitute a pretty good, if cheaply made, adventure film. Unfortunately the second half spirals and then plummets into Mystery Science Theater 3000 territory as all sense is lost and technical errors, for example rock walls that ripple like cloth or hands appearing in empty holes, begin to over take any hope that the makers knew what they were doing. If you like off beat adventure films try the first half of this...I can't promise anything about the second.