Reel Shorts | The Legend of Hercules

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This week in Reel Shorts, after the demigod son of Zeus is betrayed by his royal step-father, Hercules must battle his way back from exile and slavery to depose the king in the action film, The Legend of Hercules.

Directed by Renny Harlin and co-written with Daniel Giat, Giulio Steve and Sean Hood. The film stars Kellan Lutz.

In Ancient Greece 1200 B.C., a queen succumbs to the lust of Zeus to bear a son promised to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the king and restore peace to a land in hardship. But this prince, Hercules, knows nothing of his real identity or his destiny. He desires only one thing: the love of Hebe, Princess of Crete, who has been promised to his own brother. When Hercules learns of his greater purpose, he must choose: flee with his true love or to fulfill his destiny and become the true hero of his time. The story behind one of the greatest myths is revealed in this action-packed epic – a tale of love, sacrifice and the strength of the human spirit.

With that being said, there is no originality whatsoever in this film which contains elements from popular movies such as 300, Gladiator and even tries to invoke battle emotion using the same device used in Braveheart.

Director Renny Harlin, whose legendary bomb Cutthroat Island was one of the industry’s costliest failures until 47 Ronin over the holidays, has once again created an unimaginative, dull, non-sensical rip-off featuring a lead in Lutz who may be be eye candy for the ladies to enjoy but can’t act his way out of a bag, a screenplay that is predictable as it is shallow and special effects that are just . . . ridiculous. How many times during fighting sequences do we have to see them in slow motion? How many times in the middle of scenes did we suddenly see flowers blowing, which looked like snow falling out of nowhere?

Maybe it’s Harlin, who hasn’t had a hit this decade and has churned out one disappointment after another, yet continuously gets additional opportunities to fail. Or it could be that the Hercules brand is not interesting, with the last attempt in 1997, Disney’s Hercules, also under-performing. Maybe it’s that the lead in the film, Lutz, whose casting reminds me of how studios once cast superheroes films, simply filling out the suit and HOPING that it would suffice instead of relying on the acting.

Either way, The Legend of Hercules is bad on an epic scale and while we’re just two weeks into the new year, something tells me that the stench of this film will be very noticeable when many are filling out their list for the Worst Films of 2014. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a writer tells Jimmy Stewart, “when the legend becomes the fact, print the legend!” In the case of this stink-bomb, just keep thinking about the myth and screw this legend!

Grade: F

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