20150501: Action Review--The Legend of Hercules

The Legend of Hercules

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Title: The Legend of Hercules
2. IMDb: Users rated this 4.2/10 (39,524 votes)
3. Rotten Tomatoes:
   3% of critics liked it of 72 critical reviews posted
   34% liked it from 40,714 audience ratings.
   Critics Consensus: Cheap-looking, poorly acted, and dull, The Legend of Hercules is neither fun enough to qualify as an action movie nor absorbing enough to work on a dramatic level.


4. Status: Released
5. Release date: 2014-01-10
6. Production Companies: Millennium Films
7. Tagline: Every Man Has a Destiny


8. Budget:  70 million USD
9. Revenues, in millions USD: States 18.8 (30.8%); overseas, 42.4 (69.2%).
10. Runtime: 99 minutes.
11. Genres: Action, Adventure


12. Directed by: Renny Harlin; written by Daniel Giat, Renny Harlin, Sean Hood, Giulio Steve


13. Starring: Kellan Lutz as Hercules, Liam McIntyre as Sotiris, Gaia Weiss as Hebe, Scott Adkins as King Amphitryon, Roxanne McKee as Queen Alcmene, Liam Garrigan as Iphicles, Jukka Hilden as Creon, Rade Šerbedžija as Chiron, Johnathon Schaech as Tarak, Luke Newberry as Agamemnon


2. Setup and Plot
1. Amphitryon and his army fight to the gates of Argos, Greece, circa 1200 BC.  Amphitryon challenges the incumbent king to one-on-one combat to avoid hundreds of further deaths.  Amphitryon wins and becomes king of Argos.  Queen Alcmeme is not pleased with this result, and implores the goddess Hera for relief for her city from the conqueror.  Hercules is conceived (via Zeus) in response.


2. Hercules (called Alcide in the front end of his life) is second in line to his brother Iphicles for the throne of Argos.  Bad blood arises soon enough over Princess Hebe, whom Hercules loves and whom Amphitryon promises to Iphicles.  To separate the brothers, Amphitryon sends Hercules and soldiers to Egypt on a mission.  This does not go well for Hercules and his ally Sotiris.


3. Will Hercules extricate himself from Egypt, get back with Hebe, and fend off the challenges to their being together?


3. Conclusions
1. The RT rating is impressively bad, and the film failed to clear production costs, much less production plus distribution and marketing.  After watching this terrible film, I can only hope there is no sequel.


2. One line summary: Just as bad as the critics write.


3. One of ten.  Four black holes for acting, screenplay, set design, and direction.



4. Scores


1. Cinematography: 4/10 The set design was much worse than the camera work was good.  The use of slow motion was ridiculous.


2. Sound: 6/10 I could hear the dialog, which was nice, but the background music was rather bad.


3. Acting: 0/10 Watch it.  See for yourself.


4. Screenplay: 2/10  The words Hercules, Zeus, and Hera had a bit of similarity to common usage.  The story is nonsense, beginning to end, with little to do with any of the usual versions of the history of Hercules.