In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale DVD Review

Posted by Dan Marsicano on 03.26.2008

Uwe Boll strikes back with another video game adaption, this time based on Dungeon Siege. Can Boll finally make a good movie out of a video game?

The Cast

Jason Statham-Farmer
Leelee Sobieski-Muriella
Burt Reynolds-King Konreid
Ray Liotta-Gallian
Matthew Lillard-Duke Fallow
Ron Perlman-Norick
Will Sanderson-Bastian
Kristanna Loken-Elora
Brian White-Commander Tarish


The Rating
PG-13 for Intense Battle Sequences


The Running Length
127 Minutes


The Release Date
April 15th, 2008





The Movie

The name Uwe Boll can evoke a lot of different emotions out of movie fans. Some will laugh and say he’s a terrible director; others will be emotionless as they remember the last shitty movie they saw of his. No matter the reaction, the response is always the same; Uwe Boll is not a good director.

Personally, I’ve been blessed to have only witnessed “Bloodrayne.” It was pretty bad, but not as bad as people had been saying. Sure, the story was horrible, the acting was atrocious, and the camera work was amateur at best. There was a charm to it; a feeling that Uwe Boll really believed that the movies was good. It’s not everyday you meet a director with such blind confidence in himself that he thinks that every movie he makes is a classic.

His next video game adaption is Dungeon Siege, a popular computer game released in 2002. Of course, in usual Boll fashion, he completely deviates from the original storyline, with the only comparison to the game being some of the settings and a few characters, if that. “In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” was released just this past January, only making $10 million dollars nationwide on a budget of about $60 million dollars. Let me be blunt; this movie isn’t good. At all. Not even a little bit. The fact that this is his best movie says a lot about Uwe Boll as a filmmaker.

“In The Name of the King” tells the story of Farmer (Jason Statham), a…farmer who lives in solitude with his wife and his son. An army of Krug attacks his town, killing his son and taking his wife. The Farmer, along with friend Norick (Ron Perlman) and his wife’s brother Bastian (Will Sanderson), search for his missing wife. While this is happening, another plotline is occurring at the same time. The King (Burt Reynolds) is struggling with an evil sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta) and his nephew Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard) trying to overtake the king.

From there, it’s two hours of overacting, epic battles, and a very predictable storyline. You can tell that Uwe Boll is looking to create the next Lord of the Rings. Everything from the battles to the wide angle shots to the environments just scream out Middle Earth. Since this is Uwe Boll, we all know that “In The Name of the King” is an inferior Lord of the Rings, lacking the emotion, character development, and all around good story that the Lord of the Rings had.

The movie seems to be missing a lot of footage. Supposedly, there is a 165 minute version of the movie. If there is, somebody needs to find it and burn it. The movie could be four hours long and still not make any sense. What are some of the problems with the story? Ok, well first of all, there’s the farmer. How can he fight as well as he does? Why doesn’t he wear armor in battle? Isn’t that stupid? Why does Ray Liotta’s character know Farmer’s name, even though he never met him and can’t read his mind, like he can everybody else’s? Why do characters disappear without any explanation? Don’t even get me started on the ending, which is rushed, cheesy,and the most lackluster ending I’ve seen in a long time. I’m not going to ruin it for those who want to see it (if there is anyone), but I watched it and went “What? That’s it?” I may be no movie expert, but I don’t believe that a movie is supposed to make you feel like that.

The acting is terrible across the board, with Jason Statham being the only actor to do a decent job. He is able to display some emotion and work with the terrible script in front of him, which is more than I can say to half of the cast. Reynolds doesn’t do much as the King and Ray Liotta is as over the top as he has ever been as the evil Gallium. This performance makes his “Wild Hogs” performance looks like an Oscar winner. However, the worst actor award goes to Matthew Lillard. I’ve never really found anything wrong with Lillard as an actor, finding him inoffensive for the most part, but as Duke Fallow, he completely destroys his career. I’m serious; his terrible Old English accent sounds like a high school student acting in a Shakespeare play for the first time and he goes through scene after scene like he just read the script five minutes before shooting.

“In The Name of the King” is Uwe Boll’s best movie…and it’s still terrible. There will be an audience out there for this movie, but I really can’t think of who would enjoy this movie. The only decent thing about this movie is the CGI in the beginning (the shape shifting that the sorcerers do is pretty cool) and the British Columbia landscape. So, if you are a big fan of the British Columbia area, this movie will satisfy your love of the area.

Oh, and Ray Liotta and a rival sorcerer have a sword fight…with their minds. Just because of that, I’m raising the score up three points.

The Rating (Out of 10)
4



The Bonus Material

Behind The Scenes Featurette (10:21): There is footage shown of certain scenes being filmed, with no narration, no comments from the cast and crew, and no real order. I would have liked to see some of the fight scenes filmed, instead of random dialogue sections.

Deleted/Extended Scenes (9:33): There’s two extended scenes and one deleted one. The extended scenes only have about 30 seconds of extra footage added to them and the deleted scene is worthless. The only interesting scene is a different ending to a certain sword fight that would have actually made more sense. Oh well, that’s Uwe Boll for you.

3 Trailers (Jumper, Resurrecting the Champ, Possession)

Theatrical Trailer


The Rating (Out of 10)
3.5

The 411: "In The Name of the King" is the best piece of cinema that Uwe Boll has ever directed...so why does it still suck? We may never know the answer to this, but the fact remains that "In The Name of the King" is just another disappointing movie in a long line for Boll. Does he have talent? Yeah, I think so, but its just hard to find in between all the crapiness that he brings to the table. Someday Boll may direct a decent movie, but "In The Name of the King" isn't it. So, unless you like terrible acting, cheesy special effects, and some of the fakest looking battle scenes in recent memory, stay away from "In The Name of the King."

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]