Review of The Legend of Hercules (2014) by Alasdair B — 25 Apr 2015

It's hard to know where to begin after you've just experienced a mountain of sh*t. Greek mythology has always enticed me. It's interesting to say the least, not to mention beautifully poetic. Films like, Clash of the Titans and it's sequel, make my blood boil. Once again, here is yet another mythology baed film that utterly fails. "The Legend of Hercules'' is directed by Renny Harlin, and stars: Kallan Lutz, Scott Adkins, Johnathon Schaech, Liam Garrigan, Gaia Weiss , and Roxanne Mckee.

Queen Alcmene (Mckee) is impregnated by Zues one night, as was foretold by the goddess. Her husband, King Amphitryon (Adkins) believes she was with another man, and becomes exceedingly angry. He is so enraged that he grimaces throughout the entire film. The queen names the child Hercules, by order of the goddess. Years later, Hercules (Lutz) and his love Hebe (Weiss) are fooling around in the river. Suddenly, the brother of Hercules named, Iphicles (Garrigan) discovers them in the woods. He brings them back to the king, where they are told that Hebe will be wed to Iphicles, for Iphicles will be the future king. Obviously, the two lovers are devastated, so they run away together. This results in them being caught, brought back, and punished. Hercules must leave and go fight in Egypt.

One would imagine that the actor playing Hercules would be strong, gruff, and in charge. Kallan Lutz is the worst actor one could chose for this role. He is utterly bland, boring, and lifeless. He isn't likable--as the character should be--nor is he a guy you want to root for. He is not even tough. Honestly, he comes off as soft and weak. The second worst performance comes from Scott Adkins. His performance as the king was just ghastly. He was constantly grimacing, yelling, and shaking his fists. Every single performance was dull and flat, without exception. The characters are lifeless and dull as well.

Perhaps the worst element of this film, is the production value. Seeing as this is a film about Hercules, the expectation is that there will lots of action. There is, and every bit of it is awful. The sword fights, fits fights, and battles are all weighed down by constant annoying slow motion shots. I am not against slow motion shots, as long as they are used in moderation. In this film, they'd use a somewhat appropriate slow motion shot, then follow up with several more that just didn't work. It's painfully obvious this film wanted to be like 300. However, the action is so poor that it pales in comparison.

There are allot of special effects (CGI) in this movie. Several of the special effects shots looked okay. The rest looked absolutely horrible! You can tell that they're using green screen, and you can tell that they're using CGI. Whoever was in charge of the special effects was extremely lazy. That is the best way I can describe this movie. It is very, very lazy. Even the costumes and weapons are poorly made. Several costumes looked passable, others looked like they were off the set of a high school play.

"The Legend of Hercules'' is a dull affair, full of flat performances and uninteresting characters. The only redeeming value--if you want to call it that--was the surprisingly decent camera work. Besides this, nothing is impressive about this movie. The romance is an utter joke, the costumes are horrible, the sets are obviously sets, and the special effects are lazy.