The Legend of Hercules
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Written by: Renny Harlin, Daniel Giat, Sean Hood, Giulio Steve
Starring: Kellen Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins, Roxanne McKee, Liam Garrigan, Liam McIntyre, Rade Serbedzija, Kenneth Cranham
Action/Adeventure - 99 min
Written by: Renny Harlin, Daniel Giat, Sean Hood, Giulio Steve
Starring: Kellen Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins, Roxanne McKee, Liam Garrigan, Liam McIntyre, Rade Serbedzija, Kenneth Cranham
Action/Adeventure - 99 min
I was wrong. There has been a revival in the past few years of the ancient Greeks on the big screen including 300 (2006), Immortals (2011), The Clash of the Titans remake (2010) and its atrocious sequel, The Wrath of the Titans (2012). 300 is well done as an over-the-top digital comic book but its copycat follow-ons are lackluster action flicks at best. However, after seeing The Legend of Hercules, those previous films feel like the poetry of Ovid and epics of Homer. The Legend of Hercules is not so bad it’s good; it is so bad that it’s God-awful. It may be one of the worst movies of the past decade.
I have no kind words to say about The Legend of Hercules. Everything about it doesn’t work. The computer generated background looks remarkably fake. The substandard 3D effects make the screen almost too dark to see. Even daylight scenes come across as if you are wearing sunglasses inside. Where Avatar (2009) and Gravity (2013) employ brand name, top shelf 3D technology, The Legend of Hercules scored some generic version from a guy it knows on the street corner.
The technology is nowhere near the only element at fault. The acting is miserable. Everyone, even those from the same family, has different accents. Hercules is straight-up American while his mother is some hybrid British/Australian/American who pronounces Zeus as “Zee-oos”, the close family friend/mentor is an Eastern European Slav, and the girlfriend from Crete is British most of the time. Kellen Lutz as Hercules, best known as one of the background vampires from the Twilight series, is here for his model looks and chiseled abs; I am not sure he could act hungry in real life even if he hadn’t eaten for 24 hours.
As for the story, this is not the Hercules we know from Greek myth performing his 12 labors. This is a Romeo & Juliet revenge story with a dash of Cain and Abel, a pinch of Oedipus Rex, and a large spoonful of Gladiator (2000). The kingdom’s tyrant King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins) is cruel, destroys rival cities on a whim, and overtly favors his eldest son, Prince Iphicles (Liam Garrigan), over his younger son Prince Alciedes aka Hercules. Iphicles, well aware he drew the short straw in the genetics department compared to his brother, is only happy when Hercules is unhappy. Therefore, he underhandedly gets engaged to Hercules’s girlfriend, Princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss), takes credits for heroic feats he did not do, and gets Hercules exiled to Egypt where he is sure to meet certain death.
Ah, but Hercules rises above such petty rivalries. The trip to Egypt is just an excuse to insert the gladiator montage. Sold into slavery, Hercules easily kills all of his opponents in the arena, vows to return to Greece to get his revenge, win back his girl, blah blah blah. As an action movie, director Renny Harlin could have at least taken the fight scenes seriously. No such luck. The action is amateur. Rather than engaging and suspenseful hand-to-hand combat choreography, we get editing tricks where certain moves are sped up to show lightning fast martial arts and others are in slow motion to emphasize a particular take down or snapped neck.
Renny Harlin hasn’t always been the laughing stock he is now. He directed Die Hard 2 (1990), Cliffhanger (1993), and The Long Kiss Goodnight (2006), all good films. Then he took a nose dive with throwaways including Driven (2001), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), a couple cable TV episodes, and now one of the worst movies not just of this year or last year, but one of the worst movies of the past 5-10 years.
Audiences know movies released in January are usually the ones studios know are the mistakes. One favor The Legend of Hercules does for us is it gives us a true bottom of the barrel to judge all other failures by. When you know the absolute lowest limit of the awful part of the scale, it is that much easier to evaluate the rest of the year’s films.
I have no kind words to say about The Legend of Hercules. Everything about it doesn’t work. The computer generated background looks remarkably fake. The substandard 3D effects make the screen almost too dark to see. Even daylight scenes come across as if you are wearing sunglasses inside. Where Avatar (2009) and Gravity (2013) employ brand name, top shelf 3D technology, The Legend of Hercules scored some generic version from a guy it knows on the street corner.
The technology is nowhere near the only element at fault. The acting is miserable. Everyone, even those from the same family, has different accents. Hercules is straight-up American while his mother is some hybrid British/Australian/American who pronounces Zeus as “Zee-oos”, the close family friend/mentor is an Eastern European Slav, and the girlfriend from Crete is British most of the time. Kellen Lutz as Hercules, best known as one of the background vampires from the Twilight series, is here for his model looks and chiseled abs; I am not sure he could act hungry in real life even if he hadn’t eaten for 24 hours.
As for the story, this is not the Hercules we know from Greek myth performing his 12 labors. This is a Romeo & Juliet revenge story with a dash of Cain and Abel, a pinch of Oedipus Rex, and a large spoonful of Gladiator (2000). The kingdom’s tyrant King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins) is cruel, destroys rival cities on a whim, and overtly favors his eldest son, Prince Iphicles (Liam Garrigan), over his younger son Prince Alciedes aka Hercules. Iphicles, well aware he drew the short straw in the genetics department compared to his brother, is only happy when Hercules is unhappy. Therefore, he underhandedly gets engaged to Hercules’s girlfriend, Princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss), takes credits for heroic feats he did not do, and gets Hercules exiled to Egypt where he is sure to meet certain death.
Ah, but Hercules rises above such petty rivalries. The trip to Egypt is just an excuse to insert the gladiator montage. Sold into slavery, Hercules easily kills all of his opponents in the arena, vows to return to Greece to get his revenge, win back his girl, blah blah blah. As an action movie, director Renny Harlin could have at least taken the fight scenes seriously. No such luck. The action is amateur. Rather than engaging and suspenseful hand-to-hand combat choreography, we get editing tricks where certain moves are sped up to show lightning fast martial arts and others are in slow motion to emphasize a particular take down or snapped neck.
Renny Harlin hasn’t always been the laughing stock he is now. He directed Die Hard 2 (1990), Cliffhanger (1993), and The Long Kiss Goodnight (2006), all good films. Then he took a nose dive with throwaways including Driven (2001), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), a couple cable TV episodes, and now one of the worst movies not just of this year or last year, but one of the worst movies of the past 5-10 years.
Audiences know movies released in January are usually the ones studios know are the mistakes. One favor The Legend of Hercules does for us is it gives us a true bottom of the barrel to judge all other failures by. When you know the absolute lowest limit of the awful part of the scale, it is that much easier to evaluate the rest of the year’s films.
Comment Box is loading comments...
