Don’t expect ancient in Disney’s “Hercules.” Forget your tattered copy of Bulfinch’s mythology. Disney’s 35th animated motion picture has more to do with Nike the sneaker than Nike the Greek goddess.

It was a bra-less age, when men wore skirts of leather, planted their feet and commenced to speechifying. About heroic deeds, which they made up, or at least exaggerated — in Greek. This is the world ...