Post by StevePulaski on Jul 28, 2014 22:52:18 GMT -5
The Legend of Hercules (2014)
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Kellan Lutz in The Legend of Hercules.
Rating: ★½
Are audiences really so invested in the story of Hercules that they needed two big-budget action films in the year 2014 to showcase just how amazing and incredible of a person he was? Do audiences really care about the mythology surrounding his persona, and when I say "audiences," I mean enough of the population, genuinely invested in his story, venturing out to the theater in big enough numbers to make a film based around him number one at the box office? Are people also so desperately intrigued by the mythology behind Xerxes and The Peloponnesian War that two 300 films were necessary?
I ask these questions hellbent for answers because, the way I see it, people want to see the "swords and sandals" violence their impulses are screaming for, which is why Renny Harlin's The Legend of Hercules exists. This is a dull, dreary slog through the worst tendencies and oversimplifications of the genre, proving as redundant and mindless as the two 300 films but without even momentary entertainment, unlike those films. At least both of those films had a solid performance or two at their core.
The film stars Kellan Lutz in an immediately bizarre casting choice. Lutz appeared as a minor character in every Twilight film, and somehow, that gave a producer the idea that Lutz had mustered up the charisma and potential to masquerade as one of the most famous, mythological Gods in history. I hope Lutz can eventually show his human characteristics because, when playing a God, he simply doesn't have the personality or complexity to make such a role work, but is also give dialog that can only be described as infantile to work with.
Lutz plays the titular Greek hero, the son of Zeus, who exists as a half-man, half-God, bearing extraordinary strength. Left abandoned and helpless by his King of a stepfather and sold into slavery, Hercules tries to use his powers to fight back to his kingdom, engaging in plenty of battles and gladiator death matches in order to overthrow the King who cruelly mistreated and left him and bring peace to his fallen, divided land.
Returning to the point of the film's dialog, it's amazing it took four writers to construct a screenplay almost entirely made up of loud, obnoxious screaming and monotonous fight sequences. Numerous battle scenes use the overutilized tactics of slow-motion, that have the only benefit of slowing down the film's action - even if for a few seconds - just so we can distinguish just what is happening before we return to being puzzled and disconnected all the more. Other than that, the tactic grows tiresome and only works to slow down an already slow movie. The dialog, when is actually considered and put to use, is nothing more than simple sentences structured to hopefully provide the film with some depth, when in reality, it feels like it's using pre-assembled lines from the unwritten book of "swords and sandals" cliches that has all the situational drama already in the sentence and all one needs to do is write in the characters' names.
The saving grace here from all the redundant activity is the teal cinematography, done nicely by Sam McCurdy, who works to create a consistent hue to the film that adds at least a competent visual scheme to the otherwise indifferent everything by Harlin. Even the special effects feel like second/third-rate green-screen work by video production designers' interns while they were out to lunch, discussing more ambitious, or at least more acceptable products, to tackle in the middle of making this one. The Legend of Hercules feels like a failed Asylum product; not a mainstream film by the likes of Hollywood.
Starring: Kellan Lutz. Directed by: Renny Harlin.