Hercules in the Underworld (4 Stars)

This is the fourth of the five Hercules television movies, and it once more stars Tawny Kitaen alongside Kevin Sorbo. It was first broadcast on 18th November 1994, only a week after the previous movie, but the stories take place years apart. "Hercules and the Circle of Fire" shows Hercules meeting Deianeira for the first time. In "Hercules in the Underworld" they're married with three children, Klonus, Aeson and Ilea. These names don't match the children of Hercules and Deianeira in the Greek legends.

How old are the children supposed to be? Your guess is as good as mine. In cases like this I check the biographies of the actors. I couldn't find anything about the boys, because they didn't become actors as adults. The girl Ilea, the youngest of the three, was five years old when the movie was filmed. She's Rose McIver, who's made 20 films since her childhood, and is best known for playing the lead role in the television series "iZombie".

In a small Greek village a chasm opens up in the marketplace. A green light shines out of the hole. Everyone who approaches the hole dies. The villagers are in fear, so they send a young woman called Iole to fetch Hercules.

The hole in the ground is a pit leading to the Underworld, the place where lost souls reside. It's actually a trap for Hercules. Iole is a Nurian maiden, one of a group of women who serve Hera and are trained to seduce and kill men. Her mission from Hera is to tempt Hercules to jump into the pit, where he will possibly die. I say possibly, because there's an ongoing theme of Hercules not knowing whether or not he can die. His father is Zeus and his mother is Alcmene, a mortal woman, so he doesn't know whether he's immortal or not. In this movie Zeus tells Hercules he's mortal, but at the end of the movie Hercules accuses his father of lying, so we still don't know the answer.

Hera obviously thinks Hercules can die, which is why she's sent Iole to seduce him. I find this illogical, in the context of the series. Hercules is a noble hero who always rushes to protect innocent people against the Gods, so wouldn't he have jumped into the pit anyway?

After Hercules disappears into the Underworld, a villager reports to Deianeira that Hercules has died. She's so distressed that she commits suicide. I can understand her sadness, but shouldn't she have lived on for the sake of her young children?

Unknown to everyone above, Hercules is still alive and well in the Underworld, but he's trapped and can't return to the surface. Hera has opened up the Underworld by freeing the three-headed dog Cerberus. Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, is trying to catch Cerberus. Hercules makes a deal with Hades, that if he can catch Cerberus he and Deianeira will be returned to the surface world.

I enjoyed this television movie (or episode, whatever you want to call it) despite the problems with the plot. As executive producer, Sam Raimi should have been looking over the writers' shoulders to stop them making mistakes like this.

Deianeira hasn't aged a day in the approximately 10 years since the last episode. I wish they hadn't skipped the years in between. Maybe the writers thought marriage and childbirth would be too boring.

My main reason for reviewing these films/episodes is to write about Tawny Kitaen, but I can't help commenting on the actress Marley Shelton who plays Iole. She has such a pure, innocent beauty.

Those eyes! One look from her and I'd jump into any hole, however deep it is.

She looks like a teenager, but she was 20 years old in 1994. 

Marley has appeared in more than 40 films, including "Death Proof" and "Scream 4". She doesn't look as innocent as she used to, but she's just as sexy.