The Legend of Hercules

Kellan Lutz playing a character named Hercules.

The Legend of Hercules is the kind of film I would have excused as a Dungeons and Dragons playing teenager. I loved these fantasy films then and still have an interest in them today. Unfortunately, my taste has matured while this movie is anything but.

It ignores the actual legend of Hercules. Other than being the child of Zeus, nothing here resembles the mythological hero or his story. Instead, this film goes for Troy meets 300 by way of Gladiator and many other films. In other words, it has no clue what it wants to be and how it is going to play out.

In Twilight, Kellan Lutz played the muscular vampire who was never given a back story. Here he plays the muscular Hercules with a back story that resembles Moses. A recently conquered Greek Queen has sex with an invisible Zeus after getting Hera’s approval. (Don’t ask) The idea being that the child will grow up to do great things. Hercules is given another name and gets sent away while his jealous brother attempts to take the throne and Hercules’s love interest. He returns to free his people and get laid. In between are lots of CGI enhanced action scenes.

As long as Lutz is fighting someone, the movie is watchable. My son liked the scene where Zeus makes Hercules’s sword into a lightning whip so he can kill a garrison of soldiers. My favorite scene was when Hercules does a Samson imitation and uses the bricks attached to the chains to swing around and slaughter a platoon of soldiers.

With all the killing going on, I expected some serious blood and gore, but what do I know. There is barely a drop of blood in sight and absolutely no gore to speak of. The sex is even more sanitized. This guy captured a city just to screw the Queen, but we never see that happen. When Hercules and his woman finally do the deed they are both wrapped in separate sheets. The most erotic moment comes when Hercules’s mother is supposedly having sex with an invisible Zeus. She is fully clothed and under blankets but acting like she is having a nice dream.

The film opens with a decent set piece that looks like it was borrowed from Troy. The CGI is good as the camera takes us from the invading ships to the beach, then the walls of the city and to an encounter in front of the palace. Most of the computer animation works, except for one horrendous moment when Hercules fights a lion that is so horribly rendered that a stuffed toy animal would have worked better.

I did not see this film in 3D but I recommend that you do. Several scenes were obviously filmed with 3D viewing in mind. The glasses would also help to distract you from the warmed up leftovers this movie passed as writing.