Have you ever watched a movie that left you so monumentally unfulfilled that you’d be enraged if the movie didn’t also bore you to tears? If so you might have understood how I felt by the time The Legend of Hercules, a movie so bereft of anything of value you’d be amazed it was even made. When the movie ended, I came away with nothing, no lasting shots, no comments on the acting, and not even a whisper in my mind of it being a so bad it’s good movie; it’s just a flat out TERRIBLE movie.
The Legend of Hercules opens with King Amphitryon and his army laying waste to a neighboring kingdom. The queen is apparently unhappy with the king, saying that he wanted the kingdom solely for its gold. To get revenge, she lets Zues visit her bed chamber one night and spectrally bang her to pieces, which the King is NOT happy about. She gives birth to Hercules but names him Alcides because…reasons I guess. I’ll be referring to him as Hercules through this recap cause I have no time for the foolishness.We then fast forward years and Hercules is now a strapping young lad (played by the strapping Kellan Lutz) and is in love with a princess. This love is apparently forbidden as the princess gets promised to his brother and neither party is here for it so they try and run away, only to be caught moments later. The king LOLs at Hercules and sends him on a mission in the desert to do something admirable, I think. But SURPRISE it’s actually a set up and before long, Hercules and his mates are defeated, and sold into slavery. From there Hercules has to battle his way through gladiator arenas to try and realize his destiny, and stuff.
For a movie that’s nearly two hours, it’s amazing that I came away from the movie with absolutely nothing from the plot. The Legend of Hercules is lean to a fault, constructed as a series of scenes that move from one point to the next. This is a movie like a chicken bone, that has had the meat pulled off of it. I feel like the people who made this movie were so worried about being bogged down that hey removed anything that could have engaged the audience. In the place of actual interesting moments comes a cliched love story, terrible plot machinations, and dialogue that won’t even stick with you long enough for you to laugh at how dreadful it is.
I can’t spend any more time talking about how awful this movie except to say that in the few years I’ve been grading films, this is easily the worst film I’ve seen and one of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of watching all the way through.
Grade: 0/**** (F)
Sidenote: How did a film with this eye candy turn out so awful???? I mean…
HOW????