Admirable film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Movie Review: "The Legend Of Hercules" (2014)Summit Entertainment and Millinium Films took some risk between their smash hits "Expendables 2" (2012) and "Expendables 3" (2014) in order to bring a old dusty mythological tale of the birth of Hercules, who needs to fight through various stages as to say level of action to find his beloved character of Hebe, here performed by actress Gaia Weiss, and defeated a power-seeking character of Amphityron, portrayed by actor Scott Adkins in testosterone-spreading in high-speed 3D red epic camera system dual-strip shots, reminiscencing the production, which started the mode of contemporary mystery-action fantasy movies "300" directed by Zack Snyder and followed by "Immortals" directed by Tarsem Singh. This Renny Harlin, known for hard-boiled action thriller in the 90s as "Cliffhanger" (1993) and "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), directed fast-forward actioner does not exceed his predecessor pictures, too unidentifiable become the characters' introduction, too staggered the only push into digital camera style. Nevertheless any spectator, who sits through the accelerated ninety minutes movie gets presented with a gifted showdown, witnessing Hercules summon the lightnings of Zeus to defeat an army before concluding his quest in a decently choreographed final sword / spear / knife fight with nemesis Amphitryon.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

I had heard bad things about this movie particularly with how it has a rating of only 3% on RottenTomatoes. Please look at this, Rifftrax! Anyway, this movie is mostly deserving of the massive amount of hatred. Everything is wrong in every way. It has virtually nothing to do with Hercules at all. A lot of the story takes place in gladiatorial games, except that those were Roman, not Greek. I thought that was common knowledge? Anyway, the CGI in this film is simply terrible, especially with the lion. It's really easy to notice that this was made in 3D. Everything so awkwardly tries to jump out at the audience.It's a pain to watch this on TV. While not as bad as "Jaws 3D" it's still rather noteworthy. I thought that was Chris Hemsworth in the lead role, but I knew he's too good of an actor for something this terrible. I guess there's a few good lines in there and that's it. Where in the legends does it say that Hercules wields an electrocuting whip? It's just so stupid. Having seen "Troy", I thought this would at least be a long epic story, but I'm certainly glad it wasn't! This is worse than any of the "Hercules" movies shown on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Every personality from the mythology is changed and I'm not even that familiar with it. *1/2

Heracles, the greatest of the ancient Greek heroes. My dad told me all of his adventures and labors and heroic doings when I was growing up. There is such a rich and bountiful history behind the demi-god, so many tales that would easily make great movies, but instead we get this.From the director of action classics such as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, comes this steaming pile of crap straight from the butthole of a $70 million project.What even was this movie? The Hercules done by Brett Ratner was coming out later that year (which turned out to be far better than this), so why was this one necessary?Acting - I don't think you can call any of this acting, just people reciting lines with either shouty voices or normal voices. Okay... - Kellen Lutz is not Hercules. Dwayne the Rock Johnson was more believable as Hercules. - Scott Adkins was wasted (not that he's a great actor). If you've seen his movies, you know what he's good for...sweet fist fight action sequences. He has one in this but it's poorly done. - The bad guys were just acting like over-the-top douche bags with no layered performances.Story - The romance plot line took up way too much time. It wasn't believable, or touching, in fact, it was quite dead and emotionless and I felt nothing for the to lovebirds. - There is 1 labor performed in this film, the Nemean Lion. It was rushed and lackluster, poorly executed. - It feels too much like Ben-Hur, Spartacus and Gladiator, 10/10 films. But they had layered characters, superb writing, an emotional story line and brilliant acting and this has none of those things. It doesn't feel original and it isn't even done well so you can't forgive it for being unoriginal.Action - (Cinematography and Editing) - It's PG-13 so there's no meatiness to the fights - There's no blood or real visceral violence of any kind - Looks like a bunch of people rolling around swinging wildly, mixed in with some WWE performances - Clone of 300, or Immortals. Same style, but poorly executed. - No point to slow motion because there's nothing impressive happening and there's no blood flying across the screen. - Cuts away when anything cool might happen - It just feels boring to watch - This is the most decent thing about the movie though, soooooooo...Costumes and Set Design - Costumes just look cheap - Sets look cheap - Backgrounds sometimes look like paintings - When they don't look like paintings they look like terrible animation - Terrible animation complimented by wonky green screen blending - Why did so much have to be CGI if it was garbage? Why not create a miniature model of the city and film that rather than create an obviously fake, video-game looking world?Writing - Dialogue is cringey, cheesy, corny, terrible....take your pick. - Nothing feels tense. - Characters might as well be 2D cut- outs. There's no layering to any of them. They're either good or bad. None are tormented or have problems. Take for example Joaquin Phoenix's Commodus - clearly disturbed and vile, tormented by his thoughts and emotions. That's a character. - Come to think of it, I don't think there was an actual script, just dot points written by 4 dudes in a room.Music - UninspiredSound Design - UninspiredMovie Overall - UninspiredRating 2/10What on earth actually happened here? Could barely slog through this turd.

First, it isn't "Hercules", but "Heracles", "grace of Hera". I don't know how come Anglo people have such a hard time with the immortal hero's original, Greek name. In here, about each time they pronounced his name, they underline the fact that it meant "Heracles, grace of Hera" but called him by his Roman name anyway. It added a superfluous layer of fake of the movie, IMO.Moving on; The title is ironic anyway because the legend of Heracles gets severely mangled here: Oh, we've got the Nemean lion, but no mention of the snakes send after his crib, or the twelve labours, or any other chapter in the life of this godly hero plagued with many too human traits. No, what we've got here is a likable farm hand boy and a run-of-the-mill love triangle story so mundane that elaborating about it would be useless. He shows little strength of either will or muscle, being easily overpowered about half a dozen times in the movie.The whole movie is sanitized to the point that there is no blood nor flesh nor any of these nasty things that takes place in the world we live in. To make this gruel more appealing, it was filmed à la Gladiator (from which it also takes its basic script) and 300, for the battle sequences and general photography (complete with an abuse of Matrix-like stop motion, for *every* move). There is action and romance all of the time, and yet indifference ensues. There's a fine line between cleanliness and insipidity.The actors, rushed and lacking direction, vary from acceptable (Kenneth Cranham) to mediocre (pretty much everybody else). The sets, stunts and fights do look good, but lack originality. The soundtrack is, well, unnoticeable.Short version: 3/10. Pretty much because I am outraged that Heracles, the basis for what we know today as the "super-heroes" culture, is being reduced here to a romantic teenage gladiator. On the other hand the movie is great if one has sleeping disorders - works every time for me.