The Legend of Hercules is only the first movie to tackle the mythical Greek demigod this year. But it only does so in an oblique way. It takes the names and the setting of the story, and pretty much dumps everything else in service of a generic action blockbuster narrative. Combined with generally terrible acting and lackluster direction, The Legend of Hercules is a chore to sit through.
Queen Alcmene (Roxanne Mckee), having grown wary of her husband King Amphitryon's (Scott Adkins) imperial ambitions, prays to the goddess Hera for a way to curb his tyranny. The goddess grants her wish by allowing Zeus to bear the queen a son. Twenty years later, that son, Hercules (Kellan Lutz), grows up to be a thorn in the king's side. For defying the king, he is led into an ambush in Egypt. Hercules is sold into slavery, and from there, he fights to return to Tiryns and embrace his destiny as a son of a god and a hero of the people.
The movie succeeds in making the story of Hercules feel really listless and generic. It strips the mythological figure of all his complexity, turning him into a cookie cutter hero fighting to be with the one he loves. Rather than study the unique elements of the hero’s story, the film basically functions as a really poor riff on Gladiator. The film plays lip service to an intriguing idea that would have the hero having to choose between his love and his greater destiny, but in the end, it's unable to follow through. The movie is unable to give Hercules a compelling arc, the big climactic change coming off as completely unearned.
The film mainly wants to sell itself as a dumb action movie. And to some degree, it works in that sense. There are a series of gladiatorial battles that work well off of the mountainous physicality put up on screen. These fights, though at times sloppily edited, are fairly solid works of popcorn entertainment. There isn't much of a story being told in these sequences, but the punches land with plenty of force. Unfortunately, it's all kind of bloodless, the film compromising itself with its PG ambitions.
The film casts Twilight alum Kellan Lutz as the titular hero. Though Lutz does look the part, he is sadly deficient in the acting department. Part of what makes this Hercules so generic is Lutz's inability to inject personality into his delivery. It feels like he's doing a bad Russell Crowe in Gladiator impression, trying to exude toughness by making his voice more hoarse than it is. But Lutz doesn't monopolize the bad acting in this movie. There's plenty of it to go around, all of it delivered with the outsized sense of melodrama.
The Legend of Hercules just doesn’t seem to think that the actual story of Hercules is worth telling. Or at least, it isn’t fit for blockbuster storytelling. This is a baffling contention, since the stories of Hercules have become major templates for any tale of larger-than-life heroes. The film is determined to make everything blander, taking its cues from other bits of culture, refusing to make anything about it distinct. This is a film destined to be lost in the shuffle, especially in a year when another film about the hero is coming out.
My Rating:
