The legend of Hercules, hollywood english Film Movie Review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * * 1/2

English Film review
Johnson Thomas

All brawn and Effects but no brain
Film: The Legend of Hercules(English/3D/Hindi Dubbed)
Cast: Kellan Lutz, Liam McIntyre, Scott Adkins, Liam Garrigan
Director: Renny Harlin

Rating:  *  *  ½

Spectacle happy but performances and casting choices are not gravitating.
From the illustrious narratives of ancient Greek mythology where mortals and gods collide, comes the story of THE LEGEND OF HERCULES. A reimagining of the hero’s epic origins, the film approaches Hercules’ otherworldly and legendary history from the perspective of a young man struggling with his destiny.
 
Born half-man/half-god and imbued with awe-inspiring superhuman strength, Hercules (Kellan Lutz) falls into a forbidden romance that quickly incurs the wrath of his calculating stepfather, the King. Subsequently exiled and forced into slavery, the heroic Hercules fights for his life as a gladiator, and vows to free his people from the tyranny of the evil monarch. Renny Harlin’s un-enterprising narrative makes the mediocrity of the screenplay look even worse. His presentation of the myth is hopelessly woebegone.The scale is also not quite epical.
 
When Argos is overrun in 1200 B.C., Amphitryon (Scott Adkins, nothing if not intense) takes over as king and takes the queen Alcmene (Roxanne McKee, giving a lonely good performance) as his own. Sympathetic to her plight, the great Zeus impregnates her in order to sire a hero who may, two decades hence, avenge his mother. Just after the birth, Amphitryon is informed that Alcmene has had "a large boy."
Large he is, so much so that, once he turns twenty, there's not enough room in town for him and Amphitryon's yellow-bellied son and designated successor, Iphicles (Liam Garrigan).
 
And going very much against the grain, this Hercules is portrayed as a one-woman man, a fellow whose fighting spirit is roused principally by the fear that, if he doesn't get back to Greece from Egypt within three moons, his modelish blond girlfriend Hebe (Gaia Weiss) will marry his treacherous rival.
 
Although it clearly aspires to the 300 style of action, this Bulgaria-shot pseudo-epic is marked by CGI sequences that look superficial and therefore represents the mediocre.  And that mediocrity is magnified by the arbitrary and unimaginative use of 3D.
 
The script by Sean Hood and Daniel Giat have much to do with the more commonly known aspects of the Hercules mythology and it positions itself as a sort-of origins story. So films like Gladiator, Spartacus and Benhur come in for casual referencing. This is a indistinct period actioner and is in fact an Epic let-down!

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