So you'd rather them played it safe and done something that had been done to death? Not to mention the buddy road trip thing hasn't exactly worked for animation often; Road to El Dorado (a good movie, by the way), didn't exactly do well in theaters.
Hercules took risks and, to be honest, that's far better than wussing out and playing it safe. The risks weren't unnecessary, they were what was needed to make an interesting movie.
I don't really get where you get all these ideas about bad pacing and no quiet moments or whatnot. In fact, your whole review seems to come off as "I didn't like the stylistic choices, therefore this film is bad."
I'm not crazy about this review, either. However, this movie distances so far from the original Greek mythology, that it is so loosely based on the mythology, and it is something of a disappointment to me. To a lot of people in ancient Greece, the epic stories of the gods such as Zeus and half-gods such as Hercules were heralded religiously, and they were to them like the Bible is to Christians.
On the note of Disney's Hercules, we ought to also have a GEICO commercial that goes like this:
"Did you know that GEICO could save you 15% or more on car insurance? Did you know that Jesus Christ was able to feed one man with five loaves of garlic bread and three big bottles of grape soda?" (Jesus arrives to one random man with the five loaves of garlic bread, and three nice huge cold bottles of fizzy grape soda. Fast-forward: The man gobbles up all the bread, and swigs down all the soda. Normal speed: The man makes a long, loud belch!) "GEICO: 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance."
Essentially shortened to: animated movie for kids, with constant action and no calm moments, a typical good guy main character, not formulaic, and most of all: its shortness makes it a HORRIBLE UGLY FAIL.
Yes, "Short"+"many characters" does logically equal "little character development".
As for the "loose" take on mythology - I believe, there were dozens of variations of myths, because they were created by people, and in a country divided into many smaller countries. And most of them myths were, as a popular joke doesn't forget to remind us, about Zeus having sex with everyone except his own wife, and the consequences of the act. Hercules (Heracles) included.
Xenos Hg: Have you ever watched Ancient Aliens? According to that show, there is speculation that these "myths" are actually historical facts. Great show, must look into it.
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It tries too hard
Hercules is quite frankly, a mess. To Hades with it. It tries and fails to accomplish what Disney's Aladdin achieved so much better.
How to describe it? There's no restraint, tact, or pacing here at all, it jumps around trying to snatch your attention, which is truly mind-boggling. There's never enough calm, quiet moments for character development. I don't know if this was the end-product of executive meddling, or sheer desperation to get them out of the rut Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame put them in, but it seems to take so many bizarre choices and directions with its art style, music, songs and overall story... and it just doesn't stop.
Besides that, I honestly think Hercules as a character lets the film down the most (Greek mythology notwithstanding). He's the focus yeah but he's nothing new - the big dumb stereotype good hero guy, gaaaah, we've all seen this a million times before. The rest are just one-liner-characters, not much to say about them at all.
Now the good bits: James Woods' performance as the Faux Affably Evil, Deadpan Snarker, Hades is wonderful, simply wonderful, but alas he's just one guy, he cannot save this disaster of an animation all by himself.
Then there's Pegasus. The mythological winged horse is fantastic. I strongly believe Maximus from Disney's Tangled is channeling him.
I personally would rather have Disney make an adaptation about the friendship and trials of Bellerophon and Pegasus. Yes. Exploring themes of heroism, betrayal and eventual forgiveness. Yeah I know, the buddy-buddy-road-trip scenario is done to death, but guess what? It's a tried and tested formula for success. It would have been far safer and far more rewarding to see those two characters work off one another as comic foils, bond, and form a friendship that spans beyond life itself, rather than take all the unnecessary risks Hercules does, and end coming up miserably short.