The Legend of Hercules
2014
*
Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Kellan Lutz, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins, Roxanne McKee, Liam Garrigan, Liam McIntyre, Johnathon Schaech, Rade Šerbedžija
Queen Alcmene hopes to end the warring ways of King Amphitryon by bearing a son to Zeus, who is to bring peace to Tiryns. (But before that we must watch 90 minutes of mechanical action scenes). Twenty years later, Hercules and his half-brother Iphicles are locked in a battle for the heart of the nation and of Hebe, princess of Crete. Renny Harlin's big budget action fantasy is ineptly scripted straight-to-DVD material which steals freely from recent hit films. In the midsection, Hercules becomes a slave who fights his way to freedom. This is lifted straight from Gladiator, and some of the scenes with Kenneth Cranham (who takes over the Oliver Reed role) copy the original almost frame to frame. And if the frequent battle scenes of skimpily dressed men with their spears, swords and shields are not enough to bring back memories of 300, Harlin's overuse of the speed up and and slow down effect certainly is. Kellan Lutz makes for a wooden Hercules, and the rest of the cast do not fare much better. Admittedly, the dialogue is so clunky that even the most accomplished thespian would fail to polish this turd.
