The Legend of Hercules (2014)
Directed by Renny Harlin
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: to 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.
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The actors aren’t to blame (performances range from overacting to atrocious); as this material has a history of making even good thespians look silly (hey there, “Troy”!).
Instead, Harlin has clearly been instructed to make a derivative amalgamation of everything from 2000's " Gladiator ," to 2004's " Troy ," to 2007's " 300 ," to 2011's " Immortals " (just to name a few) without the opportunity to give it a unique identity of its own.
There are moments taken directly from "300," "Gladiator," "Clash of the Titans," "Troy" and a few others, although there are also a few unique visuals like watching Hercules staving off armies by swinging giant column boulders at the ends of chains or yielding a lightning sword.
“Legend of Hercules” makes you appreciate the real sets, real locations of “Troy,” the real movie stars cast in it and the more convincing digital warships that sweep across Homer’s “Wine Dark Sea” in search of myth and mayhem lo those several thousand years -and several Greek myth movies — ago.
In 2013, “ White House Down ” had better marketing, a bigger budget and the Channing Tatum factor, but it couldn’t escape the shadow of the other terrorists-kidnap-the-president movie, “ Olympus Has Fallen ,” which came out a few months earlier and brought in more money domestically.
From the producers of “Olympus Has Fallen,” as the ads for “Hercules” so prominently tout, comes another deliberately rushed attempt to steal the thunder (and dollars) from a big-studio movie later this year about the same thing.
Just as it did last year when it rushed Olympus Has Fallen into the marketplace three months before the far more expensive and starry White House Down -- to the latter's commercial detriment -- Millennium Films is trying to steal the bigger film's thunder with a cut-rate version of the same thing.
In 2013, “ White House Down ” had better marketing, a bigger budget and the Channing Tatum factor, but it couldn’t escape the shadow of the other terrorists-kidnap-the-president movie, “ Olympus Has Fallen ,” which came out a few months earlier and brought in more money domestically.
As with last summer’s Beltway demolition derby of “Olympus Has Fallen” and “White House Down,” the canny B-movie magnate Avi Lerner (who produced through his Millennium Films banner) is once again betting that the early bird will catch the box office worm.
We’ve spoken a bit lately acting with the whole body, especially in relation to Scarlett Johansson’s performance in Don Jon , well here Lutz acts with nothing.