Book Review: The Art and Making of Hercules

Nice film companion

The Art and Making of Hercules is a nice companion to the film and talks quite a bit on the film production with accompanying photos and concept art.

The 176-page hardcover is filled with plenty of photos from behind the scenes and location sets. Pictures are printed hug. It's quite cool to check out the details such as the costumes, props, makeup and sets.

The artworks are not as epic as I had expected. The concept art still look good but mostly for capturing the mood. You'll see character designs, weapons and environment art. The character art is so-so. I prefer fighting scenes of which there are not much. As for the environment, the story is based more on reality than myth so the designs of the buildings and architecture are more down to earth than of mythical proportions. The ones that I like more are from the Greek-inspired citadel and the dungeon, and that's about all which is not much

In terms of mixture, I would say it's 60-40 for photos and artworks.

I do enjoy reading about how they made the film, like building their sets, getting actors together, dealing with the weather, horses and other interesting stories. It provides fun insight as the director Brett Ratner emphasise shooting on location over using computer graphics. There are also profiles of the main characters, and writeup talking about the origins and different variations of Hercules from history. The story is actually included in the book so if you haven't watched the movie, you'll want to skip over those two pages.

Overall, I'll recommend this book to those who like the film or enjoy reading about film production.

4 out of 5 stars.

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The Art and Making of Hercules