LEGENDARY (Eric Styles, 2013)

[Jox]

release date: 1.1.2014

http://www.m1905.com/news/20131122/707201.shtml#p5

[JTE]

I can't wait to see it.

[MacGyver]

Does this have U.S. distribution yet?

[Jox]

Yes, it's been picked up by Wrekin Hill Entertaiment who often releases their titles through Lionsgate, but the release date has yet to be announced.

[TEMIRLAN]

How do you think, does it have any chance for a limited theatrical?

[Jox]

Where, in the U.S.? Tiny mini little chance but I think it will rather go straight to DVD/BD/VOD.

[Jox]

French DVD back cover

[Tom]

I quite enjoyed this. More than I thought I would. This actually looks and feels like quite an impressive production in some regards. Firstly in looks theatrical. It's shot beautiful in the best of the best HD, and widescreen. It's well lit. There's okay sound work too.
However given this is a creature feature (family based) it kind of comes unstuck in the sense that not too much happens in the whole film and when it does the CGI is a little too average. It's not terrible and there's been worse in big budget Hollywood franchises (like Twilight) but if you're going to have a film about mythical beasts, then you need more fx shots and better fx shots, or it looks cheap. So there's a strange antithesis in this film where it looks like the most lavish Dolph film in a while. Wonderful scenery, impeccably shot, with a really good score from Paul Leonard-Morgan (Dredd), but at the same time some of the fx let it down, particularly (as is the case with many films like this) toward the end when you see the creature clearly and it doesn't look fantastic.
Again though, the biggest problem is that not enough happens in the film.

That said on the positive side, Adkins is a solid lead. He's quite charismatic here. The rest of the cast are decent and seem natural too. They have a bit of fun with it, there's some humour in the film, and actually it does have a bit of an 80's vibe to it, which is good. As for Dolph, well this is actually quite an interesting character for him. Dolph has never played an outright douche-bag but he does here, and he does so with a lot of relish. He's having great fun with this role.

I just think had the film not tried to ground the action sequences, and been a bit sillier with them, and also gone the martial arts route, it could have added some excitement when needed. As it is, Adkins is playing more an every-man and doesn't utilise his impressive moves. This film isn't taking itself seriously either, they could have afforded the lapse in logic to have him an expert in M.A.

I think this will surprise people though because the expectation for this was very low because of the idea, the fact it's a little more family orientated, and some uninspiring trailers. It just needed more action. It's his best since Unisol 4 though, in my opinion.

[Jox]

Yeah I don't know if I said here when I saw it screened at the Cannes film market but I also thought had very good production value and found Dolph chewing the scenery to be much fun. On the other hand I found the story and secondary characters to be totally uninteresting and unnecessary. I don't mind an ensemble piece on the contrary but this isn't compelling or well written enough to be working.

[Tom]

Yeah, I mean it's almost a shame because they kind of wasted a great location, and a decent budget. It's almost more like a showreel piece than an actual film. A better script and more action and it could have been one of Dolphs best in ages.
It does make a nice change to see a D film where they've taken their time on it and shot it nicely. And if indeed one of the producers is working again with D on Skin Trade, that might be a good thing too.

[Jox]

I think what happened was they had been trying to get LEGENDARY off the ground for a while, and some of the producers have been involved in the After Dark Action flicks like STASH HOUSE and EL GRINGO so they managed to "package" LEGENDARY with Scott and Dolph to get the movie green-lit (After Dark and Courtney Solomon are thanked in the end credits).

But it was never intended to be an action film and they didn't want to change that even with Dolph and Scott (whose knee I believe was still in recovery and needed a project without too much action or martial arts). Dolph managed to bring in one of the SKIN TRADE writers (Australian friend of DP Marc Windon) to polish the dialogues through. They even kinda of thought (at least what they told me) they could bring Dolph and Scott to a wider and different audience.

Why not, but this was the perfect way to do so and maybe an even more radical change of genre would have been more welcomed)...

And if indeed one of the producers is working again with D on Skin Trade, that might be a good thing too.

On NORDIC LIGHT (since it's a British company and NL will be in good parts a European project). So the sales company might end up the same as well (GFM Films whose also handling SPACE PIRATE HARLOCK 3D).

[Jox]

New Chinese trailer
http://movie.mtime.com/168289/trailer/47218.html

And posters

[TEMIRLAN]

So this is indeed going to be theatrical in China? Nice! Vietnam - theatrical, China theatrical. Any other countries?

[Jox]

http://bzfilm.com/reviews/horror-syfy-f ... agon-2013/

[bomaz]

Well, my review won't add a lot of what has been said : good production value (light, locations and music are really really good), awful background characters, awful subplot (the lawyer ? oh my gosh ...) and so/so special effects (the baby is really badly made, but the big mama is really convincing). The fact that the "legendary dragon"just looks like a big gecko ruined the creature aspect for me ^^
Anyway, not shameful, not an object of pride, just another movie to fill his account with good production values, which saves the ship.