The Legend of Hercules (2014)

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Genre : Action/Adventure
Country : US
 
Cast :
Kellan Lutz : Hercules
Liam McIntyre : Sotiris
Gaia Weiss : Hebe

Director :
Renny Harlin

Summary
In Ancient Greece 1200 B.C., a queen succumbs to the lust of Zeus to bear a son promised to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the king and restore peace to a land in hardship. But this prince, Hercules, knows nothing of his real identity or his destiny. He desires only one thing: the love of Hebe, Princess of Crete, who has been promised to his own brother. When Hercules learns of his greater purpose, he must choose: to flee with his true love or to fulfill his destiny and become the true hero of his time. The story behind one of the greatest myths is revealed in this action-packed epic - a tale of love, sacrifice and the strength of the human spirit.

My opinion

“I declare to you that I love another; he’s the reason I want to wake up in the morning, embrace the day, if your sword wound him and his face was unrecognizable to me, I will love him. If his tongue was cut from his throat, and I hadn’t his voice to delight me, I would love him. And if you make only a memory of him, I would love him even more eternally. That’s what you have to look forward to”.

"The Legend of Hercules" has nothing to do with the legend of Hercules (or Herakles as the Greeks call him) as we know it from Greek mythology. I remember that I went to the local library as a little boy and returned home with a enormous picture book about the 12 labors of Hercules. This picture book was so huge, when I was reading it, nobody could see me anymore. And in this picture book I read about Hercules slaying a lion of Nemea and the nine-headed serpent Hydra, catching a Erymanthian boar, cleaning the stables of Augeas by means of a river, retrieving the flesh-eating horses of Diomedes and abducting the hellhound Cerberus from the underworld. In those days these heroic feats appealed to me. And they still do. But you won't notice much of that in this Greek tragedy (in other words it's a sad affair).

Ultimately it's just a pathetic hodgepodge of themes from various movies. A little bit of "Pompeii" which was also about a forbidden love between a princess and a slave who was forced to be a gladiator in Pompeii. The fight scenes were a weak duplicate of "300: Rise of an Empire" and "300" itself. Especially because of the use of slow motion effects. A comparison with "Gladiator" is also easily made. And then the end is a lot like a children's matinee on Saturday afternoon with cartoons of mythological superheroes such as "He-Man : Masters of the Universe "which are shown on TV indefinitely. This movie is bland, uninspired and surely not legendary. The only impressive item in this movie was the chest of Kellan Lutz, who played Hercules. Perhaps it can impress teenage girls who marvel while looking at these muscular males. I was less impressed than looking at a crispy fried tiny chicken on my plate during lunch.

In 1200 BC King Amphitryon invades the kingdom of Argos. It comes to a fight between him and his rival King Galenus. After defeating Galenus the kingdom Argos becomes part of Amphitryon his empire. He tells his wife Alcmene that this victory was for her. However, Alcmene is outraged by the thirst for power that her husband displays. That night she asks Hera, wife of Zeus, for help. Hera finally appears and predicts that she will give birth to Hercules, son of Zeus. Zeus (His father calls him Alcides) is born and after 20 years he has grown into a handsome muscular young man who is in love with the lovely Hebe. They hear the news that Hebe will be engaged to Iphicles, the older brother of Hercules. The two lovebirds try to flee. However, they are caught and Hercules is sent by his father on a expedition to Egypt, hoping he won't return alive. Ultimately it appears to be a trap and the regiment is being ambushed. Hercules and the faithful Sotiris are the only two who remain. They are sold as slaves to fight as gladiators. Hercules is doing everything now to return to Tires to stop his older brother and his beloved Hebe to get married.

In terms of originality, this story won't win a price quickly. The SE's used aren't that impressive either. The fight with a lion in the beginning of the movie looks promising for a few seconds, but the animated lion has the same appearance as the computerized images of "Jumanji" in 1985. So, not really an improvement. The gladiator fights captivated me a bit. Yet it was a huge disappointment at the end. The fight that Hercules had to engage with 6 never defeated gladiators, was something I looked forward to. But it was just as if Zeus himself came along and interfered, because at that moment a storm came up here. And the first thunderbolt distracted me for a moment so I needed to rewind the whole thing because the great heroic fight was already over. And I just want to mention for those who can't endure blood : don't worry, because there is not even a single drop of it in this film. I think they ran out of fake blood after filming "300: Rise of an Empire".

And then there were still a few things I had to chuckle about or that annoyed me. I think Amphitryon has some problems with his eyes or was blinded by anger. The night Zeus comes to visit Alcmene to conceive Hercules (which is associated with a considerable amount of wind. It reminded me of "The Entity"), he caught his wife in this supernatural act. And even though it is a large empty bedroom, where it's impossible to sneak out unseen, Amphitryon gives orders anyway to search for the unknown person. If you rely on the interpretation of Alcmene, this conception was quite an experience : "Zeus came into my bed and blasted me with his seed to spawn a son to end your reign."

The moment Hercules and Hebe meet back at the lake, I got a deja vu feeling about those flying fluffy things. It was also something that annoyed me during "300: Rise of an Empire". And the final battle with the lightning sword which smacked down hundreds of soldiers and the subsequent battle that Hercules fought with his father, was a bit exaggerated. It seemed like a Jean-Claude Vandamme scenario, where the hero first gets beaten up terribly before he claims victory.

The performances are also fairly limited and meaningless. Kellan Lutz looks frightfully muscled and Scott Adkins is a rather sad looking king instead of a fearsome ruler. Maybe it's the overdose of sandals movies I saw lately, so I wasn't impressed with this "Hercules" remake. The only wow feeling I got was during the opening scene where the camera pops out of the water, swings over a battlefield with oncoming soldiers and then sways between the defending archers. A brilliant moment. But this level was not maintained throughout the film. The rest is an accumulation of stale and insipid situations. Hopefully "Hercules" with Dwayne Johnson, which comes out in the course of this year, will be far better.

My rating 2/10
Links : IMDB

The Possession (2012)

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Genre : Horror
Country : US/Canada
 
Cast :
Jeffrey Dean Morgan : Clyde
Kyra Sedgwick : Stephanie
Natasha Callis : Emily

Director :
Ole Bornedal

Summary
A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl's father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child.

My opinion

Hey! Stay away from my kids teeth!

In contrast to the promising start of "The Possession", the end of this Jewish variation on the "possession" theme is quite laughable. It wouldn't surprise me if there'll be a comic "Scary Movie" version of it in the near future with a dancing rabbi in it. But despite that this is another variation on the famous movie "The Exorcist", I thought it was an enjoyable film that had its good moments.

If only the whole film would be as strong as the opening scene, this would have been undoubtedly a great movie. We see an old woman who owns the cursed wooden box and wants to destroy it, after which she's unmercifully tucked double, spun around and left behind lifeless.The yard sale the descendants of this woman organize is to pay taxes as they say, but it seems to me they need it to finance the medical expenses. It's there that Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his two daughters Emily (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport) accidentally end up, because Clyde needs more dinner plates. Emily discovers the old wooden box and is immediately fascinated. The box is filled with Hebrew inscriptions and later turns out to contain a dibbuk. A dibbuk according to the Yiddish mythology is the soul of a deceased person who has returned from hell and wants to take over the soul of a living person. The box turns out to be sealed when Clyde examines it with his daughter. Yet Emily manages to open the box overnight. It houses a number of ancient artifacts like an old tooth, a dead moth, a wooden figure and a ring that Emily starts wearing immediately. From this moment on Emily begins to change into an introverted girl with a true obsession for the box.

The second facet of this film is the family part. Clyde has only recently left his wife Stephanie (Kira Sedgwick) as the two grew apart and also because Clyde had more passion for his basketball coaching than for his wife. Meanwhile Stephanie started a relationship with the perfect man and dentist Brett (Grant Show) and the two daughters stay alternately with the two parents. This part of the film is painfully cheesy. For me this was more horror than the part with the dibbuk. You can see it coming that those two separated people still have feelings for each other, and when the end approaches, they will come together again. The irresistible dentist disappears somewhere in the movie unexplained. The relationship between the tooth in the box and the dentist probably is a coincidence.

The film is packed with cliches from previous films of this genre. However, there are a few reasonably successful moments like the moment that Emily looks in her throat with a flashlight, the slow metamorphosis she undergoes, the violent attacks against the old woman and teacher, and the scan.
There are also a few ridiculous moments. Especially when Emily plants her fork in the hand of Clyde who responds to that laconically with a dead calm "Go to your room." A true example of self-control. And the cliches mentioned earlier are also abundant. The slamming doors, the stroboscopic lights, the distorted voice, the fact that the demon uses a weakened family situation to possess someone, the desperate cry of the father to take him and the most obvious easy solution to take the film to a higher level of suspense is the use of the words "Based on a true story".

The acting by Natasha Calis is the only noteworthy in this film. The rest goes from meaningless to uninspired. Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a typical role as the protective father who scurries to the Jewish quarter for advice and help. For the rest, he goes through the mandatory palette of a caring father to a falsely accused father with despair on his face. Kyra Sedgwick plays the transverse and probably emotionally hurt and lonely feeling woman who probably has taken the perfect dentist in her house to hurt her basketball loving ex-husband. For the rest, her contribution is negligible. Madison Davenport is the elder daughter. That's it. Her only action-packed portion is the hysterical screams during the moth infestation. The most colorful figure perhaps is Matisyahu (The Hasidic Reggae Superstar) who plays the Jewish son Tzadok, who feels obliged to help the total unknown family with the dibbuk. This Hebrew-American reggae singer did his ultimate best during the closing ceremony and defeated every exorcism, ever shown in a horror, easily in points.

"The Possession" isn't really creepy. There are no gory scenes and the frights are tremendously scarce. But it's fun to watch and the entertainment level is very high. If you momentarily forget about the cliches and you ignore the obvious open end, you can really enjoy this film. Nothing groundbreaking or original, but after a film like "Cruel Will" you surely can appreciate this film.

My rating 6/10
Links : IMDB

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

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Genre : Action/Drama
Country : USA
 
Cast :
Eva Green : Artemisia
Sullivan Stapleton : Themistocles
Lena Headey : Gorgo

Director :
Noam Murro

Summary
After its victory over Leonidas' 300, the Persian Army under the command of Xerxes marches towards the major Greek city-states. The Democratic city of Athens, first on the path of Xerxes' army, bases its strength on its fleet, led by admiral Themistocles. Themistocles is forced to an unwilling alliance with the traditional rival of Athens, oligarchic Sparta whose might lies with its superior infantry troops. But Xerxes still reigns supreme in numbers over sea and land.

My opinion

If death comes, I'm ready!

"300" which appeared in 2007, was a groundbreaking revelation. Not so much in terms of content, but in terms of the visualization of the heroic battles that 300 Greeks fought, in the battle of Thermopylae led by King Leonidas. The slow motion chopping spectacle with blood splattering all over the place,is still burned into my memory. A breathtaking movie.

"300: Rise of an Empire" is not a prequel or sequel. It's an epic drama that encompasses the story of "300". Does it add value? Can it outpace "300" in terms of violence and bloodshed? Does the heroism increase in this film to a higher level? Are all your nerves strained to the limit when viewing this Greek tragedy? Bwah, not really. To be honest I was quite disappointed, annoyed and disinterested after a certain time. An easy duplicate of the original film in which the artifices and tricks are recycled. I'm convinced that the chair of history fanatics and historians will have some wet spots after seeing this movie. My chair was as dry as an old souvlaki.

However it begins in a strong way with the surprise attack of the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon. A treat on upcoming Greek violence with bare torsos so you can admire swollen muscles and six-packs. Fierce brandishing sharp swords which causes gaping wounds in slow motion and limbs being amputated. Spears pierce chests and skulls are split. And this together with gushes of blood. But haven't we seen this kind of images already in "300"? Yep ! So it can't outpace the original movie in terms of violence and bloodshed. In fact, you could feel the adrenaline increasing during the fight scenes in "300" even harder. The testosterone level was several dashes higher.

It's in this battle at Marathon that commander Themistocles kills the Persian king Darius with a phenomenal well aimed shot. The son of Darius, Xerxes, gets after the death of his father the advice not to start a war against the Greeks, since only the gods can defeat them. Naval Commander Artemisia, sees a challenge in these words and sends Xerxes into the desert to return as a god after he has dipped in gold luminous water in some cave. That was the part with a bit of Greek mythology. Xerxes looked more like a member of the "Village People" afterwards and ended up playing only a secondary role. The lion's share of attention was claimed by Artimisia. Xerxes largest share was declaring war with the Greeks afterwards.

Meanwhile Themistocles can convince the board of Athene to give him a fleet so that he can stop the Persians. He asks the archrival Sparta to assist him in this mission, but they refuse. After this, the battle focuses on the battle in the streets of Artemisium. The Battle of Thermopylae is of less importance in this film and is only shown with a few clips from the first movie. Ultimately, the focus in this film is on the cruel actions of Artemisia and the attempt of Themistocles to form an united Greece and thus to go to battle against the Persians.

Sullivan Stapleton is not such an impressive figure as King Leonidas played by Gerard Butler. During the battles, it's a formidable opponent and next to that he shows his talent as a charismatic orator. Butler was a fearsome leader who shouted his men into battle with snappy one-liners. Artemisia on the other hand is an intriguing character which was played in a proper manner by Eva Green. A spirited cruel captain who originally was Greek, but during her childhood witnessed the atrocities that were committed against her family by the Greeks themselves. She was taken as a slave, and left for dead. Then she was adopted by the Persians and teaching martial arts. She makes good use of this and shows no mercy. She hates the Greeks and the only thing important in her life is to kill as many as possible. The moment she beheads a Greek prisoner and gives it an intimate kiss, after which she throws it in the sea, is pretty impressive. In contrast, the amorous and erotic affair she has afterwards with Themistocles, which she uses to get him on the side of the Persians, was laughable and hilarious. It was more like a wrestling match.

Just like the original movie "300", this one is a spectacle and you will be treated with some violent and bloody film clips. In "300" the fighting took place in a narrow pass. In this movie most battles take place at sea with a huge drifting fleet of the Persians, and a tiny flea from the Greeks. The Greece's fleet looked more like a squadron of floating cigar boxes. The battle scenes are again impressive and flashy. A forward-moving human killing machine that destroys every intersecting opponent. Gallons of blood flows again. The choreography is beautifully worked out during the fighting and slow-motion pictures match the original film.

And that's precisely where the sticking point is. It's a film with entertainment from the top shelf, but it's actually an ordinary remake of the first film. But with the emphasis on the immense battle at sea. For me, no gain. There was only one thing that started to bother me after a while. There isn't a single scene in this whole movie, or something is floating around : sparks emanating from burning fires, dust particles that fly between sweaty bodies, small particles of shaft whirl through the image, also something like fireflies and drops of blood. At one point I was paying more attention to this than the actual movie. The battle with an awful lot of boats floating around wasn't very convincing. And it was also clear to see that they were computer images. And certainly when the horse came up. That really looked bad. And after a while I got sick and tired of the computerized streams of blood.

All in all a pretty intense movie in which Eva Green sparkled and the screen turns red again. Still, I thought it was a mediocre sequel to a peerless original film. An unnecessary sequel in other words.

My rating 5/10
Links : IMDB