Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

The Legend of Hercules 3D Blu-ray Movie Review

Add a 13th labor to the pile: having to endure watching this mess.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 22, 2014

Have we entered a new “golden age” of sword and sandal entertainment? Game of Thrones continues to command spectacularly large audiences on television, and while Spartacus never quite took off into the stratosphere, it did well enough to battle it out in the cable arena for three seasons. And now 2014 is bringing viewers two—count ‘em—versions of the venerable Hercules saga, once the respite of Italian based muscle bound Americans like Steve Reeves. While The Legend of Hercules was intermittently hyped under a kind of funny array of different titles, unlike Shakespeare’s vaunted rose, this film would probably stink no matter what label were to be applied to it. The 1958 Steve Reeves Hercules and its 1959 follow up Hercules Unchained had a certain goofy innocence about them that made them, if not instant classics, at least genial enough entertainments for their intended younger audiences. Boomers growing up in the sixties who started catching the films on television broadcasts were able to view them through a heavy filter of Sontagian “camp”, something that only increased their allure for oh, so cynical hipster types. None other than The Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno, attempted to reboot the Hercules franchise with his take on the character in 1983, and if that attempt was decidedly lackluster, even it had its own silly, small scale charms, albeit on an admittedly lo-fi level. Senses of humor helped to redeem both Disney’s 1993 Hercules (still one of its better films from this era, and one which is still missing on Blu-ray) and Kevin Sorbo’s television outing which debuted in 1995 and lasted for a few years. Unfortunately, there’s little intentional camp, and absolutely no humor, in Renny Harlin’s film. Harlin, a director who often takes himself deadly seriously, traffics in every hoary action hero cliché in The Legend of Hercules, whether or not those tropes have anything to do with any generally agreed upon formulation of the hero’s iconic story. When there is such an abundance of lore surrounding this incredible character it seems downright foolish to traipse off into patently silly territory like a completely stale subplot involving Hercules’ (now) evil brother, Iphicles, but that's pretty much what you get with this Hercules, which is less legendary than, well, labored.

Harlin stages his opening scene to give the viewer a nice literal sinking feeling to go along with the figurative one by starting the film out underwater in what seems like a bizarre homage to Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. (Mythology fans will know that Hercules and Perseus were indeed related, but would The Legend of Hercules ever do anything smart like referencing that relationship?) That turns out to be a supposedly exciting “up from the depths” shot that eventually moves past two of the saddest CGI ships in any recent major release to a huge land battle which introduces us to Amphitryon (Scott Adkins) in a sequence that seems designed to evoke memories of Zach Snyder’s 300. Amphitryon is a tyrant, but he at least seems to be genuinely enamored of his God-fearing wife, Alcmene (Roxanne McKee), telling her he conquered his enemy so that she would have a land that held similar beliefs. Those beliefs unfortunately soon redound on Amphitryon in unexpected ways, after it’s revealed that the marriage is in fact not one made in heaven (or Olympus, as the case may be), and Hera answers Alcmene’s prayer for a savior by saying that Zeus will spiritually mate with the young Queen and impregnate her with a child to be named Hercules.

Amphitryon isn’t especially impressed that his new “stepson” is the progeny of a God, probably because Amphitryon, in this overly simplified ClifsNotes version of the tale, is an unbeliever, and so obviously a ready made villain. But once the film segues forward twenty or so years, Alcmene’s first son (with Amphitryon), the aforementioned Iphicles (Liam Garrigan, made up and costumed for all the world to look like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator: Sapphire Series) is there to fill Daddy’s villainous shoes when Amphitryon isn’t on screen. It’s a completely trite one-two punch of badness (in every sense of the word) that immediately lets the audience know that things are going to trundle along a rote and predictable path. And wouldn’t you know it? A grown Hercules (Kellan Lutz) is enamored of a lovely princess named Hebe (Gaia Weiss), but that scheming father-son duo of Amphitryon and Iphicles have decided that Hebe would make a much better wife for Iphicles. To make things ironically if perfectly Biblical (not to mention a little Freudian), Amphitryon sends Hercules off to die in battle so that Iphicles can have free access to the young maiden.

Things have already drifted so far from traditional Hercules lore that it probably doesn’t matter that the, yes, legendary hero ends up being sold into slavery, only to become a contestant in what might be thought of as the ancient version of Ultimate Cage Fighting. Along the way, he buddies up with Sotiris (Liam McIntyre), the only soldier other than Hercules to make it out alive of the trap Amphitryon had set for a battalion in order to pave the way for the Hebe- Iphicles union. Need it even be mentioned that Hercules must (absolutely must—if only because he said he would) rescue Hebe within “three moons”, putting a desperate time table on the hero’s attempts to get back to his homeland.

It’s all relentlessly silly stuff, filled with portentous line readings (and some highly variable accents) of frankly risible dialogue. Harlin, who evidently didn’t spend much of his budget on CGI, instead invests the film with all sorts of Matrix-esque camera trickery, including tons of slo-mo wire work action sequences and an equally ubiquitous reliance on step printing, to supposedly give the film the look of a graphic novel being quickly thumbed through. Lutz plays Hercules like a big old surfer dude goof, a wild and crazy dude who's just out to deal with his Daddy complex while of course smacking down anybody who gets in his way.

There have been many epics that managed to coast past their unabashedly brain dead qualities by focusing on spectacle and staging, but even in this regard, The Legend of Hercules is almost impossibly inept. The big arena scene which has Hercules and Sotiris facing off against a coterie of hulking nemeses is just one example of almost mind bogglingly bad CGI, in this case attempts to make the venue look like it’s overflowing with white toga wearing audience members. What’s offered is instead something akin to innumerable little blobs of bone coloring bouncing around in the background. It would probably be unkind to suggest they give some of the more convincing performances in the film.

The Legend of Hercules 3D Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Legend of Hercules is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with MVC (3D) and AVC (2D) encoded 1080p transfers in 2.40:1. Shot digitally with the Red Epic, and done largely on greenscreen sets, the film has a flat, textureless look that is sharp enough, but patently artificial looking almost all of the time. This proclivity is only exacerbated by what can only charitably be described as less than stellar CGI offerings, many of which aren't just soft looking but actually almost look incompletely animated at times. Harlin and DP Sam McCurdy have of course tried to inject some visual flair by relentlessly color grading virtually every scene. The opening battle sequence is cast in a very 300-esque sepia, while several important scenes featuring Alcmene are bathed in a deep blue palette. There are some relatively natural looking sequences, though, including some nice scenes in a lake with Hercules and Hebe, and in these moments fleshtones are accurate looking and fine detail (especially in close-ups) is quite commendable. Shadow detail is a bit variable throughout the film. Some of the dank interior scenes when Hercules and Sotiris have been taken prisoner are murky and feature ill defined contrast.

The 3D experience here is generally quite good. While Harlin does partake in gimmicky shots like arrows aiming straight at the viewer, some of the best depth is achieved in more nuanced settings. Watch, for example, in one of the lake scenes with Hercules and Hebe, how Harlin and McCurdy achieve visual immersion simply by framing the scene through planes of leaves which automatically define a spatial continuum. Later effects, especially those in darker scenes, aren't nearly as effective. A long sequence which shows Hercules' face behind bars is relatively flat looking, probably only because there's inadequate lighting.

The Legend of Hercules 3D Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Legend of Hercules' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is expectedly bombastic in the action and battle scenes, with a variety of sword slashes and bone breakings dotting the surrounds, but I was repeatedly struck more by some relatively more nuanced and subtle surround effects. There's a great scene early in the film where Alcmene goes into labor and we see Amphitryon in his huge court, where Alcmene's painful cries of delivery echo around and through the surround channels. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and frequently nicely directional. There's some forceful LFE at key moments, and Tuomas Kantelinen's score is also placed rather forcefully around the soundfield. Fidelity is excellent in this problem free track, as is dynamic range.

The Legend of Hercules 3D Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Kellan Lutz and Director Renny Harlin. This becomes more and more sporadic as it goes on, as if even Harlin couldn't think of things to say about his film. There's some passingly interesting information about the action sequences and special effects (such as they are), but nothing unmissable.


• The Making of The Legend of Hercules (1080p; 14:46). This is a pretty stale EPK, though at least you get a glimpse of a slate or two with the different film titles.

The Legend of Hercules 3D Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I like a good, old fashioned dumb movie as much as the next guy, but I need something to keep me distracted while oversized hulks beat each other senseless, and unfortunately The Legend of Hercules provided too few pluses to offset the gigantic minus created by an inartful script, shoddy CGI, and sometimes laughably bad performances. Harlin is a spotty director even in the best of times, but he usually at least gives the viewer a relatively sumptuous physical production. Sadly even that tendency is undercut here with the shockingly basic looking CGI elements. 3D enthusiasts may well want to check this out, for it offers generally consistent visual immersion. But even Hercules himself probably couldn't have saved this lumbering, stumbling film from being the worst kind of epic: an epic disaster.