Infamously inept filmmaker Uwe Boll has made a name for himself as one of the worst directors to come along in years, many comparing him to a modern day Ed Wood. His credits include a series of misguided video game adaptations including
House of the Dead,
Alone in the Dark, and
Bloodrayne. Perhaps more than his films, Boll is famous for his bizarre stunts, such as challenging his harshest critics to fight him in a boxing ring. I've always had a perverse appreciation for the man, as while his films will never be mistaken for being art, they are at least entertaining in a bizarre fashion. His latest and most ambitious film,
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, will not disappoint those who walk into the theater knowing what to expect. The movie is confusingly edited, underwritten, and contains a number of laugh-out-loud worthy performances by B-List actors who seem to be wondering what they're doing here in the first place. And yet, this is probably the closest thing Boll has made to a real movie. At times awful, at times unintentionally hilarious, but always interesting to watch in that train wreck sort of way, this is another masterpiece of cheese from one of the masters.
Loosely based on a series of video game RPGs, but more closely resembling a third rate knock off of Peter Jackson's
Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the story centers on a simple turnip farmer who simply goes by the name of Farmer (Jason Statham). An army of beasts called the Krug invade his village, killing his young son and kidnapping his faithful wife, Solana (Claire Forlani), in the process. Farmer is fortunately handy with a sword and a boomerang, and manages to fend off the horde of monsters. Now seeking revenge, he teams up with
Lord of the Rings-era Orlando Bloom look-alike Bastian (Will Sanders) and best friend Norick (Ron Perlman) to search for his wife. Meanwhile, the noble ruler of the land, King Konreid (Burt Reynolds, in one of the most hilariously miscast "king" roles since Tom Selleck portrayed King Ferdinand in 1992's
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) has set forth to fight back against the invading monsters, while at the same time trying to avoid a royal uprising by his loopy and traitorous nephew, Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard). The King's loyal wizard and advisor, Merick (John Rhys-Davies), sees great potential in the simple Farmer and his companions, and tries to convince them to join the King's army. It's going to take all the help they can get to fight back against the mad wizard, Gallian (Ray Liotta), who is not only controlling the vicious Krugs, but has his sights set on overthrowing the entire kingdom.
In the Name of the King blends
The Lord of the Rings with just about every fantasy movie cliche, puts them all in a blender, and then pretty much splatters them on the screen in a vain attempt to tell a coherent story. It takes a mad sort of genius to take 2 hours of screen time and a reported $60 million budget, turn it into something that would seem amateurish by film school standards, and still get a wide theatrical release. Unintentional humor abounds in this movie. The Krug monsters look sort of like what the Orcs from the
Rings trilogy would look like if Peter Jackson was working with a budget equal to your standard episode of
Power Rangers. The editing is haphazard and spastic, making the film's many battle sequences impossible to decipher at times, and often confusing us with scenes starting and stopping at random. (My personal favorite moment occurs when a character is being chased by a Krug on hosreback one moment, then it suddenly cuts away, and the next time we see the character, she is perfectly fine, and no mention of the previous scene is made.) The costumes and sets also have their comedic value. I loved the women who live in the forest, swing around and hang from vines for no particular reason, and dress like they just came from a local production of
Peter Pan. The movie never quite explains who they're supposed to be. My best guess is they're supposed to be forest spirits or something, but they looked more to me like a group of magazine models who got stuck in a forest somehow, and decided to make the most of it by flying through the air like a Cirque du Soleil production.
This movie is truly all over the map. Boll didn't so much direct this movie, more so he probably just pointed a camera and told the actors to do their thing. How else can you explain that nobody in this movie seems to be on the same page? Some of the character talk in a modern day voice and slang, while some talk as if they just walked out of the local Renaissance Fair. (One character actually says, "Hip hip huzzah" at one point.) Most of the actors, however, just seem downright pissed off, like they've realized too late what they've gotten themselves into. In the lead role, Jason Statham mumbles and scowls through most of his dialogue, as if he just really wishes he was somewhere else. He can't be bothered to bring forth the slightest emotion, not even when the body of his dead child is lying before him. He looks like he's longing for revenge all right, but not on the film's villain, rather the director. Poor Burt Reynolds as the good King of the land literally looks like he lost a bet. Every time the camera's centered on him, you can almost hear him saying "What the hell did I do to deserve this"? His boredom is on display for any viewer who wants to pay theater price. Reynolds does get one of the biggest unintentional laughs, however, when he steps somewhat out of character and yells "What the hell are you talking about?" at another character. You had to wonder if this line was scripted, or if Reynolds had just gotten fed up with the lame dialogue by credited screenwriter Doug Taylor.
The two performances that really stand out belong to the main villains, Ray Liotta and Matthew Lillard, who set some kind of bizarre record for overacting. As the evil wizard Gallian, Liotta cackles at inappropriate times, bugs out his eyes, and makes no effort whatsoever to drop his modern day Jersey accent. He dresses like a Vegas magician, and spends most of his screen time chewing the scenery and acting so off the wall you start to think he mistakenly thought he had signed up to do a bizarre parody of fantasy films. Matthew Lillard, best known for playing Shaggy in the
Scooby-Doo films, portrays the King's scheming nephew, who is trying to murder his Uncle so that he can take the throne. Like everyone else, Lillard seems to be acting in a completely different movie, but his movie seems to be set on Planet X. His accent sounds like nothing of this world and keeps on changing in each scene. To show menace, he spits and drools as he gnashes his teeth and snarls his way through his dialogue. It's too bad he completely disappears from the movie without so much as a word, since his loopy performance is strangely entertaining in a bizarre way. The few scenes he gets to share with Liotta are comic gold, since it's almost like we're seeing a contest between the two men as to who can chew the most scenery. You're almost surprised that the cardboard walls representing the castle are still standing when their scenes are over.
Now that Uwe Boll has a number of films under his belt, there's no excuse not to know what you're getting into when you buy a ticket to
In the Name of the King. The man's not going to change, and in a way, that's what I love about him. Even with a budget most filmmakers would kill for, he still stays the same. Please do not take this as an endorsement. This movie is only for those experienced in bad cinema. It's certain to become a regular on late night TV in a couple years. This is a very bad movie, but unlike the awful
One Missed Call or the dreary
Bucket List, it is strangely entertaining in its ineptness. I'm most certainly never going to sit all the way through it again, but it's good for a laugh at least once.
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Infamously inept filmmaker Uwe Boll has made a name for himself as one of the worst directors to come along in years, many comparing him to a modern day Ed Wood. His credits include a series of misguided video game adaptations including House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Bloodrayne. Perhaps more than his films, Boll is famous for his bizarre stunts, such as challenging his harshest critics to fight him in a boxing ring. I've always had a perverse appreciation for the man, as while his films will never be mistaken for being art, they are at least entertaining in a bizarre fashion. His latest and most ambitious film, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, will not disappoint those who walk into the theater knowing what to expect. The movie is confusingly edited, underwritten, and contains a number of laugh-out-loud worthy performances by B-List actors who seem to be wondering what they're doing here in the first place. And yet, this is probably the closest thing Boll has made to a real movie. At times awful, at times unintentionally hilarious, but always interesting to watch in that train wreck sort of way, this is another masterpiece of cheese from one of the masters.
Loosely based on a series of video game RPGs, but more closely resembling a third rate knock off of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the story centers on a simple turnip farmer who simply goes by the name of Farmer (Jason Statham). An army of beasts called the Krug invade his village, killing his young son and kidnapping his faithful wife, Solana (Claire Forlani), in the process. Farmer is fortunately handy with a sword and a boomerang, and manages to fend off the horde of monsters. Now seeking revenge, he teams up with Lord of the Rings-era Orlando Bloom look-alike Bastian (Will Sanders) and best friend Norick (Ron Perlman) to search for his wife. Meanwhile, the noble ruler of the land, King Konreid (Burt Reynolds, in one of the most hilariously miscast "king" roles since Tom Selleck portrayed King Ferdinand in 1992's Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) has set forth to fight back against the invading monsters, while at the same time trying to avoid a royal uprising by his loopy and traitorous nephew, Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard). The King's loyal wizard and advisor, Merick (John Rhys-Davies), sees great potential in the simple Farmer and his companions, and tries to convince them to join the King's army. It's going to take all the help they can get to fight back against the mad wizard, Gallian (Ray Liotta), who is not only controlling the vicious Krugs, but has his sights set on overthrowing the entire kingdom.
In the Name of the King blends The Lord of the Rings with just about every fantasy movie cliche, puts them all in a blender, and then pretty much splatters them on the screen in a vain attempt to tell a coherent story. It takes a mad sort of genius to take 2 hours of screen time and a reported $60 million budget, turn it into something that would seem amateurish by film school standards, and still get a wide theatrical release. Unintentional humor abounds in this movie. The Krug monsters look sort of like what the Orcs from the Rings trilogy would look like if Peter Jackson was working with a budget equal to your standard episode of Power Rangers. The editing is haphazard and spastic, making the film's many battle sequences impossible to decipher at times, and often confusing us with scenes starting and stopping at random. (My personal favorite moment occurs when a character is being chased by a Krug on hosreback one moment, then it suddenly cuts away, and the next time we see the character, she is perfectly fine, and no mention of the previous scene is made.) The costumes and sets also have their comedic value. I loved the women who live in the forest, swing around and hang from vines for no particular reason, and dress like they just came from a local production of Peter Pan. The movie never quite explains who they're supposed to be. My best guess is they're supposed to be forest spirits or something, but they looked more to me like a group of magazine models who got stuck in a forest somehow, and decided to make the most of it by flying through the air like a Cirque du Soleil production.
This movie is truly all over the map. Boll didn't so much direct this movie, more so he probably just pointed a camera and told the actors to do their thing. How else can you explain that nobody in this movie seems to be on the same page? Some of the character talk in a modern day voice and slang, while some talk as if they just walked out of the local Renaissance Fair. (One character actually says, "Hip hip huzzah" at one point.) Most of the actors, however, just seem downright pissed off, like they've realized too late what they've gotten themselves into. In the lead role, Jason Statham mumbles and scowls through most of his dialogue, as if he just really wishes he was somewhere else. He can't be bothered to bring forth the slightest emotion, not even when the body of his dead child is lying before him. He looks like he's longing for revenge all right, but not on the film's villain, rather the director. Poor Burt Reynolds as the good King of the land literally looks like he lost a bet. Every time the camera's centered on him, you can almost hear him saying "What the hell did I do to deserve this"? His boredom is on display for any viewer who wants to pay theater price. Reynolds does get one of the biggest unintentional laughs, however, when he steps somewhat out of character and yells "What the hell are you talking about?" at another character. You had to wonder if this line was scripted, or if Reynolds had just gotten fed up with the lame dialogue by credited screenwriter Doug Taylor.
The two performances that really stand out belong to the main villains, Ray Liotta and Matthew Lillard, who set some kind of bizarre record for overacting. As the evil wizard Gallian, Liotta cackles at inappropriate times, bugs out his eyes, and makes no effort whatsoever to drop his modern day Jersey accent. He dresses like a Vegas magician, and spends most of his screen time chewing the scenery and acting so off the wall you start to think he mistakenly thought he had signed up to do a bizarre parody of fantasy films. Matthew Lillard, best known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo films, portrays the King's scheming nephew, who is trying to murder his Uncle so that he can take the throne. Like everyone else, Lillard seems to be acting in a completely different movie, but his movie seems to be set on Planet X. His accent sounds like nothing of this world and keeps on changing in each scene. To show menace, he spits and drools as he gnashes his teeth and snarls his way through his dialogue. It's too bad he completely disappears from the movie without so much as a word, since his loopy performance is strangely entertaining in a bizarre way. The few scenes he gets to share with Liotta are comic gold, since it's almost like we're seeing a contest between the two men as to who can chew the most scenery. You're almost surprised that the cardboard walls representing the castle are still standing when their scenes are over.
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