With its inept performances, terrible dialogue, and chintzy CGI, Renny Harlin’s “The Legend of Hercules” is somehow more cartoonish than Disney’s version, which actually was a cartoon. It’s more like a daytime soap opera, too. In this telling, Greek mythology’s greatest strongman (played by model-turned-not-actor Kellan Lutz, wearing too much bronzer) battles his sniveling half-brother (Liam Garrigan), his jealous stepfather (Scott Adkins), a fake-looking lion and various armies, all while pursuing a forbidden romance with a Cretan princess (Gaia Weiss) and coming to terms with being the son of Zeus. Every action scene looks so much like a video game that you wonder if any real humans or objects were photographed, while every non-action scene is hampered by the cast’s inability (or refusal) to inject life into the pitiful screenplay. Ye gods, what cheese.
D (1 hr., 39 min.; )
