Year: 2014
Genre: Action fantasy
Director: Renny Harlin
Plot: Hercules, born into a royal family, is betrayed by his stepfather, the King, and sold to slavery. He must accept his true birthright and claim the throne.
The gist: Despite the universal thrashing of this film, I decided to give this film a try, and discovered it's not all bad.
Thankfully, Renny Harlin still has some skill in directing action sequences, so the sword fights at least look good.
However, the film never rises above mediocrity, thanks to the cheap production values, cheesy dialogue and frequently borrowed ideas from 300 and Gladiator.
The good: The acting at least is decent. Scott Adkins makes a solid villain. Gaia Weiss is nice to look at as love interest Hebe. And as stated, the sword fights were well choreographed, too bad they're mostly bloodless.
The bad: Harlin took all the best ideas from 300 and Gladiator, removed the blood and shot them. So in essence, it's a good idea, only done better by other people. Kellan Lutz is very bland as the titular hero unfortunately. And some of the lines were just too corny.
Verdict: You can watch this if you want decent entertainment, but why do that when you can watch other films this one copied from? At the very least, it wasn't horrible, which is the best thing I can say about it. (5/10)
Year: 2013
Genre: Action
Director: Courtney Solomon
Plot: In order to save his kidnapped wife, a former racecar driver has to carry out tasks while driving a stolen car, with the car's owner, a young girl, as his passenger.
The gist: On the surface, this idea may have worked, but Getaway's poor script and direction just won't let it.
For starters, it takes a large suspension of logic to believe that Brent Magna, the guy whose wife has been kidnapped, is able to escape the police time and time again. No matter how good he is, can't they find him and surround him properly? Those cops have to be really inept.
Add to that the awful dialogue being said throughout, especially from Selena Gomez, and you have a bad film which just gets worse the longer the characters talk.
The good news is, the car crashes were all real, so credit should be given to the stunt team for that. But director Courtney Solomon's idea to film using cameras attached to the inside and outside of the car was poor. It disallows the viewer to see what's going on properly and makes them dizzy pretty quick.
The good: Ethan Hawke at least tries hard to make his character genuine despite the poor script. And the car crashes were well staged.
The bad: Bad script, which even makes Jon Voight, the voice of the kidnapper, sound fake at times. Selena Gomez was all right in the acting department actually, but she ends up asking dumb questions throughout the film, which we can again thank the poor script for. And the above mentioned camera thing, which causes vertigo after a while.
Verdict: You want to watch a movie about speeding cars that crash? Go for the Fast & Furious series. Skip this. (5/10)
