Original ideas can be hard to come by in Hollywood. When
something hits big, there can be a mad dash to release so many imitations that
it’s scary. For example when Harry Potter became the blockbuster we all knew it
would be, every studio tried to find the next young adult property that would
make them money. To this day they are
still trying to re-capture that magic, so to speak. The other thing studios love doing is rehashing
timeless characters, because you can never have enough films about Dracula or
Snow White. A once go-to character used to be Hercules, now he belongs more in
the realm of the Syfy original movie, but Hollywood has decided to give him the
“300” treatment in “The Legend of Hercules”.
Well even though no one and I mean no one was
clamoring for it, we are lucky enough to get two Hercules movies this year, ok,
I’ll wait a second for you to take that in. The first offering is “The Legend
of Hercules” staring Kellan Lutz as Hercules. Kellan you may recall was one of
the Cullen’s from the Twilight series, (see there’s the YA connection) and
while he doesn’t sparkle like in those films, he still has that same look in
his eyes. Everyone knows the story of Hercules, or least has heard the name.
Hercules is the son of Zeus, who was born to help end the rule of his step-father,
King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins). Hercules does not know the identity of his real
father and only finds out when he is being sent to control a rebellion.
Betrayed, Hercules returns to his father’s kingdom, to claim the throne and his
forbidden love, Hebe (Gaia Weiss).
Director Renny
Harlin pulled out all the tricks he learned from watching “300”, like men screaming,
and of course lots of slow motion fighting.
There are quite a few times in fact that I think he was just trying to
make “300” again. Renny Harlin has been called a hack, and it shows here more
now than ever. I always try and find something good about a film, because I
understand a lot of people’s hard work went into making this, but I just can’t
bring myself to find anything positive worth mentioning. There is something
about this character that makes it hard to make a good film about in our day
and age. To me the only good adaption was the TV series, oh and maybe “The
Three Stooges Meet Hercules”. Let’s hold out hope that our second offering of
Hercules staring The Rock will be better than this current one, because let’s
face it, it can’t get any worse than this.
Oh, wait, the next one is directed by Brett Ratner… sigh.
Brian Taylor
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