Search - In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray

John H. (johnniemidnite) from LYNNWOOD, WA
Reviewed on 10/7/2011...

With actors: Jason Statham, Ron Perlman, Ray Liotta, Leelee Sobieski, John Rhys-Davies and an UNRATED cut I prepared for an awesome blood and guts actioner. As soon as Uwe Bolls name came on screen, my heart sank. The first Jason vs a hord of rubber suit monster things came on and he was taking them out with one kick to the chest I wondered if I could sit through the entire film. I couldn't. I usually can sit through a bad film to the end with the hopes of the movie getting 'good', but this wasn't the case. I won't waste any more time on this. Avoid at all costs. ZERO stars out of FIVE, but rgw rating doesn't let you go lower than a half star.

You have no idea how terrifying Boll can be

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 09/02/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Once upon a time, a brilliant and talented cult director made a spectacular fantasy epic, full of love, monsters, epic battles and noble kings. It became a cinematic classic.



This is not that movie.



But that doesn't stop Uwe Boll from inflicting another ghastly video-game adaptation on the innocent viewing public, after scrabbling for high-fantasy shreds straight from the wastepaper basket of Peter Jackson. It's not quite his worst work, but it's still a horrendous, vomitous, hilariously wretched experience that inspires pain, tears of laughter, and perhaps a drinking game or two.



A farmer wittily named Farmer (Jason Statham) is living in agricultural bliss with his wife (Claire Forlani) and son. But then a bunch of krugs (low-budget orcs) attack -- kid dies, wife is kidnapped. Naturally Farmer vows bloody gruesome revenge, and teams up with his brother-in-law and neighbor (Ron Perlman, who deserves better than this) to help get said revenge.



But of course, this is no isolated incident -- the unspeakable windbag King Konreid (Burt Reynolds) and his hired wizard Merick (John Rhys-Davies) are opposing the malevolent wizard (Ray Liotta) and his vast army of faceless krugs. But naturally it falls to our humble butt-kicking Farmer to somehow defeat the evil wizard and save the day. And yes, the climax will involve killer books.



It's damning "In the Dane of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" with faint praise to say that this is among Uwe Boll's better efforts. After all, this is not only the director who showed his cinematic ability by literally pummeling his critics -- this is the director who has produced some of the dreckiest, most ghastly films ever to make it into distribution (rather than direct-to-DVD).



As a fantasy experience, "In the Name of the King" is dull, drab and shlocky. The settings are pretty but overcast, the "fantasy" moments are intensely cheesy (swinging on leafy ropes!), and the fight scenes are well-choreographed but full of wild anachronisms -- including kung-fu. Seriously. Despite a relatively big budget, "In the Name of the King" feels like a bunch of dudes went to a Renaissance Faire and decided to stage their own fantasy film. After a few beers.



Granted, none of that inherently marks it as an Uwe Boll film. That is reserved for random ninja that show up (you can hear Boll thinking, "Eff Jackson! It's my fantasy movie, so I can have what I want -- and I want NINJAS!"), humble farmers who fight like Jet Li, maudlin dramatic moments, and truly ghastly dialogue. When it isn't stilted ("Those who you fight... we will help you fight them") it's hilariously pompous ("Wisdom is our hammer").



At the same time, Boll is shamelessly aping Jackson's "Lord of the Rings." No, not just the sets and makeup, although many of these are shamelessly (and less realistically) cribbed. He attempts the same sweeping cinematography and score, but inserted at random and without any kind of dramatic payoff. By the finale, we've also been assaulted by airy elfin sprites who desperately need a smackdown from Legolas' long-knives.



As for the characters, you can find them in any rotten half-baked "high fantasy" novel -- aging king, treacherous noble, good wizard, bad wizard, and valiant peasants. The actors appear to be painfully aware of this fact.



To make matters worse, Statham is playing the same role he's basically played in dozens of other movies -- the stone-faced man of action out to kick some butt. It feels like someone cut-and-pasted the dude from "Transporter" right into this movie. Reynolds creakily sleepwalks through his rotten speeches, and Liotta has apparently decided to embrace the sheer silliness and run with it. As for Kristanna Loken... well, she played Bloodrayne. Nuff zed about her acting ability.



The only cast members who manage to bring any kind of dignity to their roles are Perlman and Rhys-Davies. Rhys-Davies actually works quite well as a kindly old wizard, while Perlman brings more presence and power to the screen than Statham does.



With that in mind, turning out a "Director's Cut" is a little like sprucing up the label of a strychnine bottle, and making a blu-ray is like using a magnifying glass on a decaying log. So of course they're turning one out -- a 162-minute director's cut with forty five extra minutes of Boll's work. Somehow I doubt that given the horrific quality of those first 120 minutes, that those cut minutes will improve matters -- the theatrical version was already too long for its ghastly flimsy storyline.



You can guess what kind of movie "In the Name of the King - A Dungeon Siege Tale" will be just by its title, but it dips into new levels of ghastly cheeze that few fantasy movies have managed to. A milestone in fantasy cinema -- the worst of its kind thus far."

As bad as they say

J. A. Torrontegui | Spain | 02/24/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not one to shy away from what people call bad movies, and many times enjoy them. In fact they can be my favorites. So I said to myself that this couldn't be as bad they said, it will probably be fun, I like the genre a lot.

Well, I was wrong. The first 30 minutes almost fooled me, but then it got worse and worse. Uwe Boll does crazy things like cutting a dialogue scene abruptly in the middle, and then getting back to it like 10 minutes later, and pretending it's a different moment in time. Oh my God. This is genuine bad filmmaking.

I suspect the theatrical cut might be much more bearable, but this is the 162 minute Director's cut I'm talking about.

So consider yourself warned.



The image quality on the blu-ray is top-notch."

It's not that bad, c'mon.

J. Galbraith | Florida | 04/26/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yeah, Boll is a horrible director. Yeah, there's a lot of LOTR ripoffs to point out. No, it's not a 1 star movie. 1 Star? really? Maybe I've just seen a lot more crappy movies than the people who gave this one star, but the whole time I was watching it I was looking for why everyone thought it was so bad. It's a low budget fantasy movie. It's got the acting and dialogue on par with Willow or Conan the Destroyer (not the Barbarian, that was a great movie) and it's got slightly better special effects than most of the other low budget fantasy flicks. Jason Stathan plays Jason Statham, in a fantasy movie, and if you want to see Jason Stathom in a fantasy movie, you will be satisfied. I personally enjoy watching Jason Statham double-flying-jump-kick people regardless of the setting, as he is the ultimate macho hero guy. This movie is cheesy, and the direction is terrible, but it's not a horrible movie. The actors are all fun to watch, and if you can find humor in the fact that the director threw Ninjas into the middle of a medieval battle scene, literally out of nowhere (they just come flying out of the trees and fight for a minute and then are never shown again)then you should be able to enjoy this movie. Anyone expecting LOTR 4 or Avatar, or the greatest movie ever made is being completely ridiculous anyway, and has no business harping on a movie that they expected to be something it was never ever meant to be. No, I don't think this is a four star movie, but it's entertaining at the least, and I felt I had to add a star to offset all the undeservingly bad reviews."