Released: September 10th, 2010
Starring: John Cena, Patricia Clarkson, Danny Glover, Devon Graye
Writer/Director: John Posey/Mel Damski
Description: A book-smart teenager joins his school's wrestling team as a way to reunite his surviving family members, who split apart after the death of his father, a college wrestling legend, 10 years ago.
[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]
***
Inspirational films are usually hit or miss in terms of quality and story. "Rocky" and "Miracle" are universally praised, but few talk about the sheer amount of bland and boring imitators that are filmed each year. The inspiration usually comes from the story itself, and requires no nudge from the script.
"Legendary's" main flaw is that there's a disconnect between the story and plot of the movie. Calvin Chetley (Graye) begins wrestling in order to reconnect with his older brother, Mike (Cena), who was a state champion. Mike has been absent since their father died 10 years ago. He is also estranged from his mother, who blames wrestling for everything.
Cal eventually convinces Mike to train him in wrestling. This is where the writer, or director, or editor missed a big opportunity to make this film more inspirational. They only showed Cal fail twice, and all of a sudden he starts winning. There was no build up of him getting close to victory, but falling short. It was too rushed and lack any real emotion in it. But the one thing I'll give them credit for is having Cal lose the title match even though he used the special "reverse cradle". I would have had to suspend belief too much if he had beaten a district champ.
The performances were pretty mediocre. When she was used properly, Patricia Clarkson was great, but she was vastly underused. John Cena's only poor scene was the bonding moment before the big match when he teased Cal about listening to opera. He delivered that line so unnatural that it made me cringe, but that was rare during the bulk of his scenes. The standout was Madeleine Martin of "Californication" fame, who played love struck, Luli, and made me believe her love for Cal was real and not tacked on to the film.
"Legendary" falls just short of being a solid film. All that was need was a better training montage and more showing than telling in the story's main conflict which revolved around the Chetley family. The dad's death was dealt with in exposition near the end of the film. A flashback scene or even an old newspaper article would have been better than telling it through dialogue. Exposition never works, never.
Rating: 5/10 -- Solid story that was just missing something. The amateur wrestling was pretty realistic. Also, there was a WWE style entrace for Cal before the last match, which dropped the rating by a half-point.
"Legendary's" main flaw is that there's a disconnect between the story and plot of the movie. Calvin Chetley (Graye) begins wrestling in order to reconnect with his older brother, Mike (Cena), who was a state champion. Mike has been absent since their father died 10 years ago. He is also estranged from his mother, who blames wrestling for everything.
Cal eventually convinces Mike to train him in wrestling. This is where the writer, or director, or editor missed a big opportunity to make this film more inspirational. They only showed Cal fail twice, and all of a sudden he starts winning. There was no build up of him getting close to victory, but falling short. It was too rushed and lack any real emotion in it. But the one thing I'll give them credit for is having Cal lose the title match even though he used the special "reverse cradle". I would have had to suspend belief too much if he had beaten a district champ.
The performances were pretty mediocre. When she was used properly, Patricia Clarkson was great, but she was vastly underused. John Cena's only poor scene was the bonding moment before the big match when he teased Cal about listening to opera. He delivered that line so unnatural that it made me cringe, but that was rare during the bulk of his scenes. The standout was Madeleine Martin of "Californication" fame, who played love struck, Luli, and made me believe her love for Cal was real and not tacked on to the film.
"Legendary" falls just short of being a solid film. All that was need was a better training montage and more showing than telling in the story's main conflict which revolved around the Chetley family. The dad's death was dealt with in exposition near the end of the film. A flashback scene or even an old newspaper article would have been better than telling it through dialogue. Exposition never works, never.
Rating: 5/10 -- Solid story that was just missing something. The amateur wrestling was pretty realistic. Also, there was a WWE style entrace for Cal before the last match, which dropped the rating by a half-point.
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