The Legend of Hercules Review - How to destroy a myth
After Paramount and MGM announced their Hercules: The Thracian Wars directed by Brett Ratner and featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Millennium Films quickly followed the idea of riding the wave of enthusiasm towards the rediscovered myth of the son of Zeus, scrambling up to make another movie about the demigod gifted with invincible strength. Mere competition is seldomly a good reason to make a movie (or to start any venture really), and The Legend of Hercules sadly cannot be counted as an exception to the rule; quite the opposite is true, in fact.
Everything starts in Argos 1200 years ago, where violent king Amphitryon wins a war after the other, driven by an insatiable lust for power. His young wife Alcmene, disgusted by him, beckons the goddess Hera to stop him, and she allows the woman to spend a night with her husband Zeus, in order to conceive a savior that will put a stop to Amphitryon’s ambition. The son of Zeus, Hercules (known by everyone as Alcides), grows up with his step-brother Iphicles (who is always envious of Hercules), and the two compete for the love of the beautiful princess Hebe. Amphitryon favours Iphicles over Alcides, and decides to have the latter killed. His godly powers, however, were just waiting for the right occasion to manifest themselves…
The fallen king of action movies Renny Harlin was hired as director, trying to re-establish his own name after many flicks that left no trace (the last one, Devil’s Pass, is pretty much unknown to the greater public); in the role of Hercules the production called the fangirls-loved Kellan Lutz, Twilight Saga‘s Emmett Cullen. Let me put it bluntly: we can only hope that Ratner’s movie, coming out this Summer, will be at least somewhat better than this mess by Harlin.
The movie collects an embarassing series of anachronisms, from a necklace with a clip lock to Vikings with fur coats and horned helmets, medieval architectures and Celtic paintings, Roman armors and war tactics and Reinassance weapons, Japanese martial arts and Babylonian doors, modern wrestling and imperial gladiatoral games, everything mixed up in an improbable “Ancient Greece” that’s a syncretist arena of a “past” too vague, which is clearly counting on the public’s historic ignorance. The relation between Lutz’s blank Hercules and Liam Garrigan‘s coward Iphicles can be traced back from Thor‘s main characters: the “evil” brother with raven hair flattened on his head, often dressed in green, wants to acquire the throne and parental approval through any means, while the “good”, beautiful, strong, bearded and heroic one manages to manipulate the thunder in one of the most ridiculous scenes of the movie, with an electric whip used to lash Egyptian soldier with Anubis-like helmets.
Computer graphics used in The Legend of Hercules is truly embarassing, with a Nemean Lion competing against Jumanji‘s one in ugliness and phony panning shots in which the characters move like puppets; even the 3D version is limited to a couple of carnival tricks, with arrows, stones and embers thrown towards the spectator with jubilant infantilism. I’ll just mention briefly the silly dialogues, the nearly-spoofy performances, a boring story that steals elements from Troy all the way to Gladiator, an all-too abused and often demential messianic rhethoric, not-so-special effects, a senseless and messed up cinematography, abused slow-motion and idiotic narrative expedients. Is that enough for you?