Review of The Legend of Hercules (2014) by Maineutral R — 14 Sep 2014

Far more entertaining than what I was expecting, but only because it's bad quality is admirable, dreadfully admirable. This take on Hercules borrows too much and results in nothing; it barely holds itself for an hour and a half, because one minute more and it would be unwatchable.

The movie looks cheap, really REALLY cheap. This is something a YouTube filmmaker would do in special effects. It is understandable, as it's an independent production for a website, and it's only looking for recognition so it can have an opportunity in something and for those standards, it's high. But this is a Hollywood film, so it begs the question why this looks so bad. It's a large combination of bad elements, which all ultimately forms the conclusion that the guys making this doesn't know what they're doing. The film is shot dreadfully, as the shots lack any wonder or Golden Composition. It stablishes nothing. The action scenes have too many quick edits that's hard to tell what just happened half the time. If that wasn't enough, there's a lot of slow-motion & speed up shots that really got tiring even before the film shows them. Also, these guys don't seem to know what lighting is for in films; there's a lot of shots with too much bright and barely have multi-colors on those.

And this film lacks any originality: the story is generic and bland, there are no characters, there's no more story other than a plot, and when it comes to styles, this film steals from many other sword & sandals movies, most notably Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, William Wyler's Ben-Hur, Zack Snyder's 300 and Ridely Scott's Gladiator, and even the TV Series Spartacus and Vikings. It steals so much it might as well be a compilation of clips from all these movies. Some of the action scenes almost work, but they're shot so dreadfully and deliver so little impact and emotion that they're nothing but a desperate excuse for entertainment when the film has literally nothing to offer. It's a movie that looks bad, sounds bad and IS bad. It's literally nothing but rip-offs of other movies you've seen a million of times. If you thought Disney's Hercules was too much of a change, well, look again!

The Legend of Hercules is pure emptiness and simply nothing to worry about, as surely nobody will remember this after a few days, and it will let itself be forgotten by history. I can't believe I will ever say this, but given the result of this one, I really hope Brett Ratner does better...if a film makes you say that, it means either you or the film reached the rock-bottom.