Man, oh, man — the balls of Mark Polonia to place a copyright notice right on the title screen of Empire of the Apes. This is the $1.98 version of 20th Century Fox’s venerated Planet of the Apes franchise, still going strong after nearly five decades in existence. How a rip-off this brazen, this transparent could exist in an industry environment so litigious that the word “butler” ignites a legal firestorm, I’ll never know. Perhaps it’s flown so far under the Hollywood radar as to render itself stealth. It sure doesn’t fall under the First Amendment protection of parody, because Empire is too fan-fictiony to resemble a spoof, even by honest error.

Three barely dressed women (the credits don’t bother to give them names, so I won’t, either) imprisoned on a spaceship make their way to an escape pod, which promptly crash-lands on a (but not the) planet of apes. Clearly just men behind masks, these primates wear denim jeans and trench coats and footwear from Cabela’s. They also talk! Despite being so advanced on the evolutionary scale, they are confused by the women and their weapons; one ape accidentally shoots his own head off, to the delight of his poo-flinging brethren. At least I think they’re laughing; it’s tough to tell since their mandibles move to approximate speech patterns, yet their voices echo inside the masks rather than emanate from within.

When it comes to dialogue, the ladies — or “the primitives,” as the script by director Polonia (Amityville Death House) calls them — get all the USDA-choice lines, from “‘Behave’ rhymes with ‘slave’” to “What are you gonna do, put us in a cage and feed us bananas?” (Ba-dum-bum.) As if commenting on the females’ collective performance, one ape warns, “It is best if you do not speak.” I agree.

Empire is not a better movie than the most recent “real” Planet of the Apes chapter, 2014’s Dawn of the, but if — and only if — you have just 60.77 percent of the time to watch … —Rod Lott

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The first of two Hercules projects to hit the big screen in 2014, The Legend of Hercules is so bad, the other one need not do much more than simply show up to the battle to win.

And mind you, “the other one” comes from Brett Ratner.

But back to the first-outta-the-gate Legend. Directed by the once-promising Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2), the film errs in many ways, but most notably through miscasting. Whereas the other Herc flick casts Dwayne Johnson (né The Rock) as the Greek myths’ ultimate hero and god of strength, Harlin has Kellan Lutz, a Twilight franchise second-stringer. Lutz looks like a frat boy who overdid the bronzing tanner, but his mortal enemy, King Amphitryon, is played by Scott Adkins (2010’s Ninja), a real-deal martial artist who commands the camera. Lutz likely commanded the on-set iPod playlist.

The two deserve to have to switched roles, but my preference would be to nix Lutz entirely. Free of charisma, he looks no more convincing chasing a babe (Gaia Weiss, TV’s Vikings) than he does choking a CGI lion. So dull and flat is the 3-D would-be epic, viewers may wish they were the lion, quickly put out of misery before the curtain falls on Act 1.

Lou Ferrigno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Sorbo: You are forgiven. —Rod Lott

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Here’s my personal theory as to why Predator has stuck around after so many similar movies have disappeared from the public consciousness, and it’s not the alien (although that is a vital component).

It’s that Arnold Schwarzenegger [SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN IT!] loses the climactic fight.

Think about it: We’ve got a more-or-less traditional action scenario: the Austrian Oak (named “Dutch,” because duh) leads a Black Ops troop into Central America on a rescue mission. There, an alien hunter quickly decimates this ragtag troop of former wrestlers, football players and porn stars until we get to the customary final bout of mano-a-extraterrestrialmano.

Customarily, pretty much every Arnie film comes down to a show of brute force — i.e. Commando, Conan, Raw Deal, Eraser, Jingle All the Way, et al. — because how could anyone hope to defeat a man whose biceps are bigger than the average American’s thigh? Yet here, we find Mount Brawny outmatched. He’s forced to outthink his crab-faced opponent through an adoption of new tactics rather than come at him muscles a-blazin’, and even then he loses. It’s only through a mixture of luck and intelligence that Schwarzenegger ultimately manages to triumph.

Beyond that, Predator would still only be a rare acceptance of action-hero mortality if it weren’t for the now-famous alien, a charismatic creation that is practically the xenomorphic embodiment of Schwarzenegger himself. Director John McTiernan (Die Hard) wisely keeps it hidden behind an invisible shield to heighten the tension, and keeps the action and wisecracks flowing smoothly. Frankly, he’s a far better director than the material deserves and keeps the B-movie festivities from falling to, say, Dwight H. Little (Marked for Death) levels of averageness.

Even more than that, McTiernan deserves some mention for achieving the nigh-impossible: making Jesse Ventura watchable. Although Ventura tries his damnedest to stop him. —Corey Redekop

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I, Frankenstein. This, garbage.

Based on a reasonably obscure comic book, I, Frankenstein feels more as if its true origins lie in the bleeps and blips of a video game. At one point among a seemingly endless number of fight scenes, our stitched-together hero makes a broad leap over a car and punches a gargoyle on his way down — a slow-motion move that sophomore director Stuart Beattie (better-known as the screenwriter of Collateral and 30 Days of Night) commits to pixels in a left-to-right pan. All that’s missing is a life/health counter at the screen’s fringes.

The classic Frankenstein story dreamt by Mary Shelley is dispensed within mere minutes in order to bring the mad doctor’s reanimated creation into the 21st steampunk century. Here named Adam, the handsomely scarred monster (Aaron Eckhart, The Dark Knight‘s Two-Face) joins the fight against Satan’s legion of demons, which conveniently number 666.

They snarl from behind Halloween masks; he finishes them off with the panache of a skilled martial artist. Those longing to see Frankenstein’s monster basically plopped into Kate Beckinsale’s part in the Underworld series — with which the film shares producers — may delight amid all the blue-tinted flash. But even that’s not likely, as I, Frankenstein is numbing, best summed up by the subtitle your Blu-ray player will repeat often if the feature is activated: “METAL CLANGING CONTINUES.”

Sadly, Eckhart in a Goodwill-donated robe is not the same as Beckinsale in black leather pants. Speaking of the ladies, Adam just wants to be built a mate. I, Bride of I, Frankenstein, anyone? Hope not. —Rod Lott

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Like a French version of 1984’s Night of the Comet, Dead Shadows depicts one night in the City of Lights — specifically, the one with the passing of a comet. This rare event makes tech-support slacker Chris (newcomer Fabian Wolfrom) very nervous. After all, when a comet last passed a decade ago, dear old’ Dad went mad and killed Mom; Chris has been afraid of the dark ever since.

With Chris on edge more than usual, a relaxant of sorts arrives in the form of Claire (Blandine Marmigère), his hot, newly single neighbor. An artist by trade, she invites Chris to an “apocalypse party” that night. We know she’s good to go when she shares the name of her in-progress series of paintings: Orgasmic Explosions.

Chris agrees — wouldn’t you? — but has trouble finding Claire at the soirée. He does, however, see a man’s anaconda-like alien phallus slither up a slutty attendee’s behind … and out her mouth. Basically, the comet’s presence causes the citizenry to mutate — or is it all just in Chris’ head? — into a parade of Lovecraftian monsters that would give Guillermo del Toro a Pacific Rim-sized erection.

With a running time under the 75-minute mark, Dead Shadows should spark to life on the double; first-time director David Cholewa bides his time, however, so viewers likely will expect a payoff worthy of his slow build. It does not happen, although a face-melting partygoer and a topless spider-woman are effects well-realized. Cholewa’s direction is not at fault for the film’s eventual place one step above mediocrity — it’s newbie Vincent Julé’s script, stupide. In the end, with all accounted for, the movie is far more c’est la vie than c’est magnifique. —Rod Lott

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