Whether it’s by accident or design, the concept of ‘twin films’ is a regular occurrence when two movies with strikingly similar premises enter production at the same time, and inevitably find themselves compared to each other every step of the way. Unfortunately for one of them, there always has to be a critical and/or commercial winner.
A Bug’s Life saw off Antz, Armageddon handily defeated Deep Impact and Olympus Has Fallen surpassed White House Down to name but three, although 2000’s Mission to Mars and Red Planet were equally dismal. 2014 brought a battle between opposing versions of a mythological icon, with Kellan Lutz’ The Legend of Hercules getting out of the gate six months before Dwayne Johnson’s Hercules.
The Rock’s version wasn’t a monster hit, but it did manage to earn $244 million at the box office and secure a decent enough Rotten Tomatoes score of 58%. Legend, on the other hand, was a dismal failure. The 3D historical actioner didn’t even recoup the $70 million budget from theaters, and it was positively savaged by critics, ending up with a paltry RT rating of just 5%.
The battles are repetitive and monotonous, the script is one-dimensional at best and Kellan Lutz brings all the charisma and screen presence of a wet sock to the title role, but The Legend of Hercules has somehow managed to find a new lease of life on streaming, where it currently ranks as one of the ten most popular titles on Hulu as per FlixPatrol.
