THE LEGEND OF HERCULES [2014]: in cinemas now

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Directed by:
Written by: , , ,
Starring: , , ,

USA

IN CINEMAS NOW

RUNNING TIME: 109 min

REVIEWED BY: Dr Lenera, Official HCF Critic

 

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In Ancient Greece, King Amphitryon invades the shores of a neighbouring kingdom and kills his adversary King Galenus in a duel, thereby winning his kingdom and army. Amphitryon’s estranged wife Alcmene prays for help and is visited by the goddess Hera, who prophesises that Alcmene will bear the son of Zeus and he will be the saviour of her people. Alcmene soon gives birth to a baby boy named Alcides, but his real name is Hercules. Twenty years later, Hercules still knows nothing of his background or destiny and is in love with Hebe, Princess Of Crete, who has been promised to his brother….

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It would make a fantastically thrill-packed, spectacular epic, the story of Hercules, or rather Heracles as he should really be called though it’s the Roman version of his name that is commonly used. The son of a mortal woman and Zeus the king of the gods, an attempt is made on his life right from when he’s a baby by Hera the jealous wife of Zeus, and who eventually succeeds in driving him mad and making him kill his wife and children. As penance, he has to perform twelve labours, which range from him going to slay fantastical beasts to cleaning out the world’s most disgusting stable given to him by a king, labours which result in him having to do such things as briefly hold the world on his shoulders and visit Hell. I’ve only skimmed the surface of the story of Hercules, but I’m sure you get the picture, and considering virtually anything can be now realised on screen and the popularity of films like Peter Jackson’s Tolkien outings, you’d think they’d attempt it now. With another Hercules picture soon to follow the one reviewed here into cinemas, you’d think one of them would attempt to be faithful and do the tale justice.

It looks that this could actually be the case with Brett Ratner’s forthcoming film, but it certainly isn’t the case with this one, and worse than that it’s a pretty poor movie too, yet another big disappointment from Renny Harlin who made two of the best American action movies of the 90’s and at least three other hugely fun pictures. He even had a hand in the script of this one too. The baffling idea they had with this film is to take out most of the fantasy aspects from the story of the early years of Hercules and basically make something more along the lines of Gladiator, with amazingly similar characters and story beats. Various other shoddy recent offerings like the Conan The Barbarian remake and Immortals also seem to be an influence, in fact The Legend Of Hercules just seems to be made up from little more than spare parts of other films, while having few of their saving graces like Conan The Barbarian’s unrestrained brutality or Immortals’ radiant look. Of course one shouldn’t expect film adaptations to always be faithful to their sources, but aside from a couple of scenes involving Hera, a stupid lightning whip at the end and a hilarious scene where Alcmene is being made love to by the invisible Zeus, this film shouldn’t really have the title it does, while Kellan Lutz’s irritating Russell Crowe impersonation made me yearn for Kevin Sorbo, and that’s bad. In fact, shoot me now, but Steve Reeves was a better Hercules.

There’s one rather good battle scene in a cave that shows signs of Harlin’s old action chops, but overall the simple revenge story is mostly taken up with repetitive fight scenes which, while mostly devoid of shakycam and stupidly fast cutting, tend to have a slow motion shot every few seconds that usually robs the scenes of any rhythm, this eventually getting so tiresome even Zach Snyder would have found it excessive. Meanwhile a great many scenes take place against incredibly unconvincing CGI backdrops while characters actually seem to shimmer in the foreground, while a lion not only doesn’t look like it’s actually there but for God’s sake doesn’t even look like a lion. Even things which are easy to do like arena crowds are horribly botched – the people watching the gladiatorial combats look like nothing less than components of a computer program, which of course they are. There are some prettily photographed scenes in and around a lake which seem to have strayed in from another film, and I will say that, while I had no interest in seeing The Legend Of Hercules in 3D, it did look like it was using 3D the right way – as a gimmick – with lots of things looming out at the audience. It actually might have helped the experience, and that’s not something I say very often – I mean this is a film where ancient Greek soldiers are dressed like Romans.

This movie is downright bizarre in the way that people are injured or killed but there’s no visible aftermath. One guy falls on a sword but you don’t even see the blade come out of his stomach! There’s nothing wrong with a sword and sandal flick that holds back on the violence, but this one just does it in a terribly clumsy and stupid way. The performances are generally reasonable though sometimes cast members visibly have trouble delivering the clunky dialogue with any conviction. Scott Adkins does surprisingly well in villain mode and gets a couple of chances to show off his martial arts skills. There’s also a rather good, old-fashioned score with at least one strong theme from Tuomas Kantelinen, who is a composer I shall look out for, but the music is too constant and even amusingly grand for such a lousy film. Despite slating it for most of this review, The Legend Of Hercules is kind of entertaining, in the way bad movies can be. An entertaining bad movie which you can laugh at is often a better way of passing the time then a run-of-the-mill film that is neither good nor bad, but this particular picture is still a failure on most levels. It’s one of those films where you have to wonder if anyone involved in making it actually saw the final cut.

Rating: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

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About Dr Lenera 1969 Articles
I'm a huge film fan and will watch pretty much any type of film, from Martial Arts to Westerns, from Romances [though I don't really like Romcoms!]] to Historical Epics. Though I most certainly 'have a life', I tend to go to the cinema twice a week! However,ever since I was a kid, sneaking downstairs when my parents had gone to bed to watch old Universal and Hammer horror movies, I've always been especially fascinated by horror, and though I enjoy all types of horror films, those Golden Oldies with people like Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee probably remain my favourites. That's not to say I don't enjoy a bit of blood and gore every now and again though, and am also a huge fan of Italian horror, I just love the style.

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