The Rock flexes serious muscle battling dragons, lions in latest “Hercules” trailer

As practically a lifelong wrestling fan, I still get a thrill seeing a wrestler as one of the top legitimate action stars in Hollywood these days.

Of course I’m talking about Robert “Kurrigan” Maillet who stars as The Executioner. Oh, no wait. That’s all wrong. Ah, there we go. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson dons battle armor and a lion’s pelt for his latest role in “Hercules” a.k.a. “The Good Hercules movie slated for 2014 not the abysmal ‘Legend of Hercules’ starring that guy from ‘Twilight.’”

In the second trailer, we get a lot of big time slow-motion money shots of Hercules battling armies, undead hordes, lions, Cerberus and a dragon (!) You can almost touch the glorious 3D in this one so it looks like this could be a rare case where the 3D is actually worth it. And Ian McShane is playing Hercules’ mentor/sidekick Amphiaraus and the always excellently Rufus Sewell is playing Autolycus.

With all of his action roles, I always wonder how much the CGI artists must hate having to digitally remove all of Johnson’s tattoos. Hercules has become a mercenary and is recruited by the King of Thrace to battle an evil warlord.

Pretty much the only thing this film has going against it is that it’s directed by Brett “I hate Cyclops and pretty much all X-Men fans” Ratner. But if Rock could withstand years of dealing with the WWE politics of Vince McMahon and Triple H, Ratner should be fairly easy to overcome. We’ll find out soon when the film comes to theaters July 25.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwlynHlZEc4&w=560&h=315]