For me it looks OK film and I have seen lot of movies. It has a 70 mil. budget and usually half of the budget goes for marketing the film so here we come to 35 mil. insted of 70 mil. And for me it looks pretty neat for that budget.
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I dont hate it (I try and keep a open mind because it annoys the hell out of me when people bombard the boards with "this looks *beep* ) but I dont feel that impressed with what I saw and dont think im going to see it when it comes out (for some reason this genre doesn't intrest me that much :s )
1) It looks like a lot of other pictures
2) It's being released in early-mid January -- the studio usually does this with sucky pix.
3) This is the most damning: Renny Harlin directed it. The man must be giving fantastic head to some important studio person to keep getting employed, he's indisputably one of the most incompetent directors out there. Not only "Cliffhanger" but also "Cutthroat Island" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight". These are not the WORST films I've ever seen, but they didn't fail that for lack of directorial incompetence...
How could you hate the long kiss goodnight?? It might not be a masterpiece but was so much fun and dark and brilliant. I need to watch that film again i think just to remind myself how amazing it is lol
shareCutthroat Island I will give you, But Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight were a lot of fun. Yeah, they aren't masterpieces, but I have always had a blast watching them.
I agree with you that it DOES look like other movies (i.e. "Gladiator", "300". etc) and January is usually a dumping ground. ALL of that is true. I did see it anyway (I'm a fan of the old Steve Reeves "Hercules" films and all of the crazy, cheesy films that followed it for the next 10 years or so) and, while it wasn't very "Hercules"-esque (it's an origin tale), it wasn't terrible. It was okay--NOT great, but not trash. The 3D was surprisingly good, especially in the opening sequences (with arrows zooming towards you, fire, etc.). It doesn't deserve the hate it's getting, but it's not deserving of amazing praise either.
I am in total agreement with your criticisms of Renny Harlan. How he continues to get work is beyond me. You left off one of his most notorious bombs-- "Exorcist 4: The Beginning". Oh my GOD! Was that ever a stinker! "Hercules" is a giant step up from that pile o' poop, but, again, not the best movie around by far.
I didn't expect much coming from the guy who directed The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
shareRenny Harlin should have been blacklisted by Hollywood after Cutthroat Island.
shareI didn't expect much coming from the guy who directed The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.
I havn't seen it? Judging by the trailer I could swear that I've seen it multiple times over the last 10 years. Maybe I'm wrong but the trailer seriously feels like it's done by putting together footage from 300, Spartacus and Troy.
shareEspecially when the guy who played Spartacus is in it.
shareDon't forget Gladiator, plus he has the backstory of Moses. Someone was watching a lot of Heston.
shareThe trailer could be sketch from MAD TV. Sorry :(
Why do people hate it? Cause usually when u don't believe actors in a trailer, u don't believe them in the whole movie... And I don't believe them... I freaking believed Kevin Sorbo that he is Hercules... But Mr. Lutz... A-a... probably not his fault... but still... he sure ain't a Hercules....
shareI just saw the trailer, and the amount of wincing I did probably left permanent wrinkles...
Ok, trying to be impartial:
1) With such a strong title, audience is going to expect a proper Hercules storyline. This is not some made up fiction, Hercules has strong historical mythology with awesome material to source a proper movie.
2) Instead, what we see from the trailer is a mish-mash of scenes from Gladiator, 300, Troy and gratuitous violence. The scene where Hercules is bound in chains to two pillars in a roman amphitheater (yikes, timemachine) is straight copied from Samson and Delilah (1949).
3) Why the hate:
This movie does not try to write alternative storyline, it just copies from previous cash-cows with no regard for the original Greek mythos of Hercules.
It would be as if Hollywood made a movie about the legendary Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä "The White Death" and replace the Winter War with American Civil war just to get more audience (and throw in the actors from Twilight).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4
The only thing I hate about the movie is that Kellan Lutz is playing Hercules otherwise I think that the movie will be entertaining.
shareBecause we've seen the trailer and like all American films it is just designed to be a big budget commercial film riding on the coattails of a preexisting popular character with no attachment or faith to the story, the lessons, the wondrous works of art that made that character notable in the first place. Consider King Arthur, with a leather bikini clad Guinivere, or Hercules by Sam Raimi in which Hercules meets Jesus and the Three Wise Men, or the last Sherlock Holmes movies which have knife fights and explosions. After 300, Americans should no longer be allowed to touch anything from Greece.
sharelike all American films
Hercules by Sam Raimi
After 300, Americans should no longer be allowed to touch anything from Greece.
because the trailer is rotten and it looks like a film made of piechart by some executives
shareLightning Sword was bad, but the thing that shocked me in the trailer was the first shot looking in the ampitheatre, honestly the worst cgi I've seen this decade. Gladiator did shots of crowds in the collisuem a lot better and that was like, what, 14 years ago?
Unfortunately that sounds a little like famous last words.