The Legend Of Hercules

The Legend Of Hercules - the first of this year’s two live action Hollywood offerings about the mythical Greek strongman - has the look and feel of a B-movie with none of the edge that sometimes makes that genre more fun than the pricey studio alternatives. With its negligible star power, this 3D indie version from Millennium Films will benefit from a six-month jump on its big budget rival but might still struggle to find a substantial audience of fantasy fans.

The 3D is used crudely and the actors can’t breathe much life into the clunky dialogue.

Summit Entertainment is giving the film a wide US release this weekend, and the PG-13 rating should lead to a better domestic performance than the $21m  recorded in 2011 by Millennium’s R-rated Conan The Barbarian. Independents that have bought the film from Nu Image may have better prospects since mythological live action fantasies have sometimes done very well internationally. 

Written by Sean Hood (Conan The Barbarian) and Daniel Giat (cable movie Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee), the film skips most of the familiar Hercules episodes - except for the slaying of a pretty unconvincing CG lion - and instead concocts an origin story for its half-god, half-man hero.

Not yet aware of his heritage, the young Hercules (played by Kellan Lutz from The Twilight Saga) is banished by his tyrannical father (British actor Scott Adkins, from Unknown Soldier: Day Of Reckoning) and brother (Liam Garrigan, from UK cable’s Strikeback) but returns to Greece with sidekick Sotiris (Australia’s Liam McIntyre, from Spartacus: Vengeance) to rally the populace and reclaim love interest Hebe (France’s Gaia Weiss, from Vikings).

Director Renny Harlin gives the film a visual style reminiscent of Zack Snyder’s 300 and delivers some lively martial arts-style fights and a few decent (if skimpily populated) battle scenes.

But the 3D is used crudely and the actors can’t breathe much life into the clunky dialogue. Lutz (who also appeared in Greek mythology adventure Immortals) certainly has the looks and body of a Hercules but he lacks the kind of screen presence that the film very much needs.