PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological* I saw LEGEND once before, but I must have been "out of critical mode" while watching, because I remembered nothing about it. Only after this re-watch did I realize that it's much worse than even the bargain-basement Hercules flicks of the sixties. 
Only the opening scenes have any bite to them. King Amphitryon of Tiryns (Scott Adkins) is first seen leading his army to conquer another city. Amphitryon proposes single combat against the city's king for all the marbles, and he wins the battle and dominion over the city. What this ruthless monarch does not win, though, is the approval of his wife Alcmene (Roxanne McKee). Alcmene, despite having borne a son to Amphitryon, hates her lord's warring ways so much that she prays to Hera at the goddess' temple for a deliverer. Hera appears to Alcmene, and tells her that Zeus, King of the Gods, is willing to spawn a hero with the mortal queen, while Hera is willing to allow the infidelity because-- well, it's not clear why Hera's on board. My theory is that the writers knew they had to use the strongman's familiar Roman name "Hercules," rather than the Greek "Heracles," but they *may* have wanted to allude to the meaning of the Greek name, since said meaning occurs later in the script: "Heracles"= "Glory of Hera." Alcmene consents to have Zeus come to her at night, and Amphitryon witnesses what is essentially an "invisible man" impregnation. The evil king doesn't overtly make the connection to Zeus, but since he doesn't simply have the infant Hercules killed, Amphitron probably worries about the consequences of killing a god's spawn.
After this setup, though, the script devolves into an amateurish level of predictability. Hercules (Kellan Lutz) and his older sibling Iphicles (Liam Garrigan) grow to manhood, and though crown prince Iphicles is scheduled to make a political marriage with Cretan princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss), she and Hercules fall in love. Amphitryon is the only one besides Alcmene who knows/guesses Hercules' divine parentage, but Iphicles gets some direct evidence of his half-brother's power when the two siblings are out in the wild and get attacked by a bad CGI creature that's supposed to be the Nemean Lion. At least the lion is invulnerable as in the myth, and Hercules breaks its neck with his demigod-strength. But this signals to Iphicles and his father that they need to get rid of this strongman, so they send Hercules off to a foreign war in the hope he'll get killed. The rest of the story is just a long, boring montage of action-scenes as Hercules gets taken prisoner as a slave, is forced to fight in gladiatorial games, and finally works his way back to Greece to reclaim Hebe and overthrow his false father and nasty brother.
It's hard to choose which of LEGEND's faults is the worst. The CGI Nemean Lion looks great next to the awful gladiatorial battles, which seem as fake as hell. While director Renny Harlin had never been a critical favorite, I liked both of the nineties films he did with Geena Davis, CUTTHROAT ISLAND and LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. Despite the assorted problems of both movies, they're good basic formula-flicks that can catch an audience up with sheer momentum. But LEGEND drags from fake battle to fake battle with zero sense of kinetic power, and Harlin's phoning it all in. The dramatic scenes are equally terrible, and the dialogue is so clunky that it's hard to tell if any actor except Adkins has any talent. But I'd have to say Kellan Lutz is the worst performer here. He acts out his Herculean role with a sort of stone-faced indifference and fails to sell the alleged heroism of his character. Even a couple of scenes where Hercules invokes extra power from his heavenly father-- additional strength in one instance, a lightning-filled sword in another- fall flat. Though LEGEND came to theaters six months before the Dwayne Johnson HERCULES of the same year, I strongly suspect that LEGEND's producers sought to steal a march on the Johnson film. But coming out early with a mediocre script didn't help LEGEND, which flopped at the box office just as the Johnson film succeeded. Even the Asylum's HERCULES REBORN, also from 2014, proved more entertaining than this drab mythological misfire.
Only the opening scenes have any bite to them. King Amphitryon of Tiryns (Scott Adkins) is first seen leading his army to conquer another city. Amphitryon proposes single combat against the city's king for all the marbles, and he wins the battle and dominion over the city. What this ruthless monarch does not win, though, is the approval of his wife Alcmene (Roxanne McKee). Alcmene, despite having borne a son to Amphitryon, hates her lord's warring ways so much that she prays to Hera at the goddess' temple for a deliverer. Hera appears to Alcmene, and tells her that Zeus, King of the Gods, is willing to spawn a hero with the mortal queen, while Hera is willing to allow the infidelity because-- well, it's not clear why Hera's on board. My theory is that the writers knew they had to use the strongman's familiar Roman name "Hercules," rather than the Greek "Heracles," but they *may* have wanted to allude to the meaning of the Greek name, since said meaning occurs later in the script: "Heracles"= "Glory of Hera." Alcmene consents to have Zeus come to her at night, and Amphitryon witnesses what is essentially an "invisible man" impregnation. The evil king doesn't overtly make the connection to Zeus, but since he doesn't simply have the infant Hercules killed, Amphitron probably worries about the consequences of killing a god's spawn.
After this setup, though, the script devolves into an amateurish level of predictability. Hercules (Kellan Lutz) and his older sibling Iphicles (Liam Garrigan) grow to manhood, and though crown prince Iphicles is scheduled to make a political marriage with Cretan princess Hebe (Gaia Weiss), she and Hercules fall in love. Amphitryon is the only one besides Alcmene who knows/guesses Hercules' divine parentage, but Iphicles gets some direct evidence of his half-brother's power when the two siblings are out in the wild and get attacked by a bad CGI creature that's supposed to be the Nemean Lion. At least the lion is invulnerable as in the myth, and Hercules breaks its neck with his demigod-strength. But this signals to Iphicles and his father that they need to get rid of this strongman, so they send Hercules off to a foreign war in the hope he'll get killed. The rest of the story is just a long, boring montage of action-scenes as Hercules gets taken prisoner as a slave, is forced to fight in gladiatorial games, and finally works his way back to Greece to reclaim Hebe and overthrow his false father and nasty brother.
It's hard to choose which of LEGEND's faults is the worst. The CGI Nemean Lion looks great next to the awful gladiatorial battles, which seem as fake as hell. While director Renny Harlin had never been a critical favorite, I liked both of the nineties films he did with Geena Davis, CUTTHROAT ISLAND and LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. Despite the assorted problems of both movies, they're good basic formula-flicks that can catch an audience up with sheer momentum. But LEGEND drags from fake battle to fake battle with zero sense of kinetic power, and Harlin's phoning it all in. The dramatic scenes are equally terrible, and the dialogue is so clunky that it's hard to tell if any actor except Adkins has any talent. But I'd have to say Kellan Lutz is the worst performer here. He acts out his Herculean role with a sort of stone-faced indifference and fails to sell the alleged heroism of his character. Even a couple of scenes where Hercules invokes extra power from his heavenly father-- additional strength in one instance, a lightning-filled sword in another- fall flat. Though LEGEND came to theaters six months before the Dwayne Johnson HERCULES of the same year, I strongly suspect that LEGEND's producers sought to steal a march on the Johnson film. But coming out early with a mediocre script didn't help LEGEND, which flopped at the box office just as the Johnson film succeeded. Even the Asylum's HERCULES REBORN, also from 2014, proved more entertaining than this drab mythological misfire.
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