Trailer Link

Release Date:

January 10, 2014

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “The origin story of the the mythical Greek hero. Betrayed by his stepfather, the King, and exiled and sold into slavery because of a forbidden love, Hercules must use his formidable powers to fight his way back to his rightful kingdom.”

Poster: D / B- (4)

Review: (#1) A dry (pun intended) poster design that lacks embellishment, excitement or energy. It’s the kind of dull imagery that dooms a production to ignorance. (#2-#4) The character posters, from a foreign territory, are more enticing and setting-oriented, though they lack of the inventiveness of other character deisgns employed in recent years.

Trailer: C-

Review: A gladiator falls in love with a woman who will/has been betrothed to someone else. When gladiator makes waves, he’s sent off to quest and journey back home. When the story of Hercules (son of the Roman god Jupiter, but here portrayed as the son of the Greek god Zeus) is the original and the original sounds derivative, you have a problem and this film has one.

(NOTE: I had thought I had already done this, but wasn’t seeing my previous post. After I finished, I found it and realized that they changed the name of the film (including the design of poster #1). Anyway, here is what I originally had to say about not only the trailer, but the poster: {Poster: Going for the dark and unstable, the design isn’t particularly bad, it’s just lacking the richness of detail that could have drawn the eye more easily and encouraged it to stick around.}{Trailer: How do you encourage people to stay away from your movie? Obviously bad action. Obviously bad visual effects. Obviously stolen 300 elements. Obviously little resemblance to the Greek/Roman legends. Obvious attempt at starting a franchise (“The Legend Begins”)? This abomination of a trailer is so painful to watch that you’ll long for the less awful version featuring this character due out later in the year from Brett Ratner and starring Dwayne Johnson. This is not that film and don’t get confused.})

Oscar Prospects:

None.

Revisions:

(January 5, 2014) Original

Additional Posters