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Directed by Finnish-born filmmaker, Renny Harlin – best known for Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger – The Legend of Hercules latest depiction of the son of Zeus.

The film begins its story in Ancient Greece, 1200 B.C with the power-hungry King Amphitryon (Adkins) leading his army into victory over the kingdom of Artos. His queen, Alcmene (Mckee), isn’t so keen on her husband’s oppressing regime and pleads the gods to free the kingdom of his ruthless dictatorship. Luckily, her prayers are answered by the goddess Hera, who soon informs the pleading queen that she will give birth to the son of Zeus; a boy she later names Hercules, whose destiny will be to bring down Amphitryon and bring peace upon the land.

Flash forward to twenty years later, the now fully-grown young Hercules (Lutz) can be seen spending his days fighting and sharing precious time with his forbidden love, the Princess of Crete, Hebe (Weiss). Trouble begins when Hercules finds out that Hebe has been promised his half-brother Iphicles (Garrigan) in marriage and in order to save his lady, he makes a plan for the two to run away together.

Unfortunately, they’re caught and our loved-up hero ends up being exiled from the kingdom, only to be later sold into slavery. 

Now, in order to fulfil his destiny as the liberator and the saviour of the Promised Land – and save the woman that he loves – the mythical strongman needs to do everything in his power to prevail.

Known for his role in the Twilight series, Lutz definitely looks the part of the hardwearing hero, but offers very little to the role; stiff and inflexible, his performance deprives the film of any heart. Conversely, Adkins, who portrays the ruthless king Amphitryon, serves as the highpoint of the film, while McKee and Weiss are anchored by their one-dimensional damsel in distress characters.

Renny Harlin’s surprisingly doleful tale of the Greek legend is exceptionally wooden and its straight-to-DVD quality is equally disturbing.  The action sequences, which look and sound like a cheaper rendition of other bigger, better movies such as 300 and Gladiator, are astonishingly flat and watching it in 3D  add little-to-nothing to the experience.

Essentially, everything about The Legend of Hercules bears screams B-movie; feeble storyline, unconvincing characters and poor special effects – an early entry for ‘worst of 2014’.