Title: The Legend of Hercules
Director: Renny Harlin
Length: 99 minutes
Year of Release: 2014
The Legend of Hercules is a film directed by Renny Harlin, and stars Kellan Lutz, Scott Adkins and Gaia Weiss, and revolves around the character of Hercules, son of Zeus, who was born solely to end the life of the King of his people, and unite the lands in peace, or something like that. I didn't pay too much attention, to be honest!
This movie is horrible. It's clichéd to pieces, poorly directed, horribly acted and disastrously written. All the dialogue feels so god damned forced, and makes it incredibly difficult to latch onto any of the characters. Whenever they speak... It's like someone saw Spartacus or Game of Thrones and went "Well, now I certainly know how people of that era spoke!" and wrote a screenplay, full of fancy words and shallow speeches. You don't feel like a single word here is sincere; from Hercules speaking to his clichéd, forbidden love Hebe (Yeah, that's right; his forbidden love's name is Princess Hebe), and from the King to his son... It's all atrocious! The screenwriter also saw the speeches in Braveheart and LOTR: Return of The King and went "Well, we obviously need a battle speech!" and wrote a bunch of big speeches that were emotionless, and couldn't have been more forced. I'll move on, cause I could go on about the dialogue for days!
The acting... It's too much! The main actor, Kellan Lutz, came from Twilight... So you knew from the beginning you were in for a bad ride. He's completely emotionless, stale and you not for one second care for his character. His forbidden love, played by Gaia Weiss, is equally horrible! The only reason she was cast, obviously, is because she's pretty damned hot! Scott Adkins, though, leads the way in crappy performances! His entire performance revolves around him yelling every single word. He could be speaking to his wife in private, and still find the need to yell every word to her. It was dreadful to watch! The only decent performance was delivered by Liam McIntyre, who plays Hercules's friend and comrade. He could actually deliver the lines with a bit of power, emotion! Despite his decent performance though, the rest of the cast deserves Razzie's. I'm calling it people; every single actor and actress here will get nominated at the Golden Raspberries this year! That is not good!
The action is horrendous. Remember 300; that badass film about Spartan's kicking a bunch of Persian's asses? And remember how it used to go into awesome slow motion every once in a while during the fighting, when a sword was plunged deep into a body, or someone hit another over the head? Well, they do it here! And is it good? Hell no! They overuse it to pieces, and by the end of the film, you can't help but cringe every time it occurs. The action in general feels weak. There is never a moment in this film in which you worry for Hercules. You always know that he's going to beat his opponents, and that makes for fights that have you bored and uninterested! When the great hero Hercules lacks peril in his fight scenes, you have a problem.
The CGI here is again, horrible! All the green screen looks like it could have fit right into a 1980's action flick. For a film coming out in 2014, that's not a good sign! All the CGI aspects of this film look incredibly fake, and mixed in with the terrible live sets, it makes for a difficult experience. I'm so thankful I did not see this in 3D, I certainly wouldn't have been able to stand it all. And the extra admission price... completely criminal!
Overall, The Legend of Hercules is a pile of crap. Just please don't watch this! This film should be nominated for Razzie's, and make a minimal amount at the box office. It's one of the worst movies of all time, and certainly going to be on my top 10 worst of 2014. I need to watch 300 now, to feel good about this genre again.
Junkie Score: 1.1/10
Worth admission price? No
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