The Ultimate Legacy

"The Ultimate Legacy" is the last movie of the Ultimate trilogy. The movie is OK, but not as good as the original. It is a Hallmark-quality movie, definitely not a blockbuster.

In order to understand everything that's going on you will need to watch "The Ultimate Gift" and "The Ultimate Life" before this movie, possibly more than once. If you haven't seen the prequels you will be missing a lot of information about the characters and may be confused when people, places, events, and concepts from the first two movies are mentioned. For this reason "The Ultimate Legacy" does not work well as a standalone film. Each film in the trilogy is missing some information that can be found only by watching all of them.

6.1 stars.

This chapter of the saga devolves into a genetically inferior clone of 'The Ultimate Gift' (the first one). 'The Ultimate Life' (the second one) is much improved over the first, but 'The Ultimate Legacy' takes two steps, possibly three steps in the opposite direction.

The first had some very cheesy acting, but with superior editing, music and cinematography. The second episode utilized a lower budget, but showcased a great story, better writing, and acting, even though the actors were basically unknowns. This one consists of all the worst of the three. We have a few of the recognized actors with low quality production value and bad acting from the leads. The dialogue is also inferior to the first two movies, making this substandard in every way. Peaking around 7 stars in a few scenes, most of this is dull and slow, dipping down into the low 5's. I'll give it a 6.1. I should've stopped to stand pat after 'The Ultimate Life', but instead I pressed "play" and hit for a bust.

A story like The Ultimate Legacy has been told a million times over, but somehow, it all comes together near perfectly. The tale of a hot shot coming home to his traditional family is given a twist by asking him how he can redeem himself not just emotionally, but spiritually as well. The film is full of terrific performances, including Raquel Welch, Brian Dennehy, and The Shape of Water's Doug Jones. And the story has a terrific conclusion that left me with a smile on my face. I highly recommend this for families!

I up picked up this movie because it had a great cast: Bill Cobbs, Raquel Welch, Brian Dennehy, Doug Jones, and Lee Meriwether (and what seemed to be a fleeting image of James Garner on a video screen). Unfortunately the bulk of the acting rests on the feeble shoulders of young thespian lightweights you're not likely to hear about anytime soon. Moody Actor #1 plays Joey, a spoiled rich kid who stands to inherit millions from his grandma's estate. The story sets about establishing that he's got "issues", and the young lawyers surrounding him are unprofessional schmucks who are unnecessarily cagey about the terms or "gifts" he has to fulfill in a year (a YEAR!) in order to receive that money. Supposedly Joey is a selfish ass but within the first 15 minutes of the movie he's already redesigning a memorial for his grandma and giving food to the homeless. So what was the jerky behavior that convinced everyone Joey was a pampered brat who needed to spend a year (a YEAR!) to prove his worth?

Moody Actor #2 plays one of the lawyers. He has a beautiful wife and daughter and laments that he can't spend more time with them because he has to babysit Joey and make sure he fulfills his "gifts". Well, dude, why don't you? Whenever his wife asks him to spend more time with his family he's not with Joey, he's at his office, pounding away on a keyboard and having absolutely no paperwork on his desk (gotta love the digital age).

Ditzy Actress plays another lawyer. She wears tiny skirts and heels so high they keep sinking into the lawn every time she crosses it to bring Joey a snack. The inevitability of her ending up with Joey is woefully obvious, and apparently her only purpose in the movie as you never really see her doing any legal work. Rounding out this flaccid cast are the Tolken Black Cast Member, John Davidson's son (looks like him, anyway), and Random White Guys.

I could go on but look, the point is, don't see this movie. Raquel Welch has 5 minutes of screen time, as does Cobbs, Dennehy, Meriwether and Jones. Oh, Doug Jones... I specifically picked up this title because in a recent interview he talked about how much fun it was for him to not have to wear a creature suit in a movie, yet even someone of his caliber is barely on screen. If the pitch for this film was "Let's have a weak story and hire a great cast that we don't use in favor of millennials you've never heard of", this is the result. Save yourself the frustration and rewatch "Hellboy 2".

There's a lot of mystery and intrigue in this movie along with some surprises along the way. I definitely recommend this one.