The Legend of Hercules

 Hello everyone and welcome to the year 2014! I'm TheCinemaChick and I see a bunch of movies and talk about them. We're going on my third year of doing this, so let's make it a good one, eh? Anyway, tonight, Fry and I went to see the new Kellan Lutz flick “The Legend of Hercules”.


Well...he gave it a good shot.


Where to begin with this one...it's obviously about Hercules, played by Lutz. Honestly, I thought he'd at least be good to look at but that's not even the case. He's got so much makeup on that you can't even see his features. Okay, I will admit, his body is gorgeous. He is well built and he clearly works hard to look so pretty. I've seen him in other films and he is a great actor who can do some incredible fight scenes. This one...while its not the worst thing I've ever seen, it's not one of the best. “Hercules” should be an action fantasy film but it's really an unintentional comedy.


The acting is overdone, the action, if you can call it that, was less than stellar and there's just a long list of issues. First off, the movie was shot in Bulgaria, so I'm assuming there are some actors from the area. I take no issue with that but if you want to make a professional film, at least try to get their accents right. Some of them were English, a couple were Irish, I think the dude with cornrows (yes, you read that right) was Italian...it was a mess. It was hard to understand names, so about halfway through the movie, I finally realized that the main love interests name was Hebe (pronounced Hee-Bee).


Then there's the incredibly forced love triangle between Hebe, Hercules and whoever the brother is. Seriously, I don't know anyone's names. Let's call the brother Creeper. So Creeper wants Hebe but she's in love with Hercules The father, who's a real dick, sends Hercules off to Egypt to die but of course he lives. There is a lot of awkward sexual tension between them. The whole vibe between them was off and generally creepy. Then again, Creeper came off as the spoiled, entitled prince he's supposed to be. He's like Joffrey. If you get the reference, you get a cookie. But he's the stereotype spoiled prince. Her gets everything he wants and if he can't have the girl, no one can.


My main problems are the cinematography. Whoever did the special effects, CGI and camera work needs to be fired and reprimanded. I will admit, some of the effects were pretty badass. The thing is, the work with the green screen was incredibly poor. You knew when the background was fake because it looked like it was fake. Even certain sets were clearly artificial. Don't get me wrong, some of the scenes were amazing. Half the time it was incredible, the other half, almost like someone in film school made them. As if that wasn't bad enough, they made it clear this film was meant to be seen in 3D because there are scenes that don't make sense unless its in 3D. The effects just fall flat.


And now, lets talk about one thing that bugs the crap out of me. During certain sequences, the action would drastically slow down and the focus would become intense. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, think about the Zack Snyder movie “300”. They would be in battle then things would just slow down for no real reason then go back to normal speed. I'm sorry, I don't care how cool it looks, it detracts from the overall feel. Then mixing bad CGI with slowed down action sequences with terrible dialogue...are you trying to make this a comedy?


I honestly wanted to like this movie because I enjoy Greek mythology and Kellan Lutz is all sorts of hot. This just wasn't his finest hour. For a film that short (not quite 2 hours) it never really went anywhere. It was Hercules having daddy issues and fighting until he got home to face his father. It became it predictable about halfway through. You knew what would happen, who Hebe would end up with and how the battle would go. But even then, I could not take it seriously. The scenes were meant to be serious but he'd say the wrong things and it would end up being hilarious. There was one scene where Hercules said “We will take what they have ripped from out breasts” and my inner teenage boy came out. I was laughing much harder than I should have.


Honestly, don't bother with this one. It's jumbled, its confused and it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. “Hercules” isn't quite fantasy nor is it an action nor is it historical. It's another blockbuster doomed to fail on opening weekend. Do yourself a favor and wait until this one is out on DVD or Netflix.



I'm TheCinemaChick, apologizing for this short review but I am incredibly tired tonight.