Rating of
0.5/4
It will give your brain cavities
goodfellamike - wrote on 10/26/08
If you don't already think that Uwe Boll is the greatest director of video-game to movie transfers, this tepid mess of a fantasy epic is not likely to change your mind. I have never played any of the video games he bases his films on, nor am I ever going to, because after this debacle it's still hard to find any enjoyment from gravity-defying stunts, aweless magic and characters with an emotional level as deep as a bottlecap. I'm ripping on both the video games and this film.
I haven't seen a worse film, ironically, since Boll's own House of the Dead back in 2003. The worst film in between then and now is another Boll masterpiece, Alone in the Dark; it's ironic that Boll's Bloodrayne (which got some of the harshest reviews ever) is, in my opinion, his best movie, though a 'C minus' grade is hardly praise-worthy. He does not have a good track record.
Easygoing Farmer (Jason Statham) finds himself caught in the middle of a war between the good king Konreid (Burt Reynolds) and the evil sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta) and his minion fighters The Krug (who are a cross between the Orks of Lord of the Rings and The Sand People from Star Wars.) After the kidnapping of his wife Solana (Claire Forlani) and the death of his son Zeph (Colin Ford), Farmer vows for revenge with the help of his next door neighbor Norick (Ron Perlman) his brother-in-law Bastian (Will Sanderson) and wise magician Merick (John Rhys-Davies). He will also find aid in the likes of Merick's daughter Muriella (Leelee Sobieski) who is sleeping with the evil Gallion, and Elora (Kristana Loken) who can best be described as a tree warrior. Farmer must also deal with King Konreid's power-mad nephew Duke Fallow (the reprehensible Matthew Lillard). I don't even know what happened to Lillard's character, who is a particularly annoying and evil presence in the film; one should be gratified by a gory death scene, but he sort of disappears and is never heard from in the last half an hour (I guess I shouldn't be complaining.)
Director Uwe Boll has fashioned an incomprehensible story that moves so fast from scene to scene, it doesn't even bother to make any sense out of anything. There are endless, boring scenes of hand-to-hand battles between The Krug and Farmer that overstay their welcome after a few minutes, but continue to play out for half of the movie. For once, I would have preferred to be watching someone playing a video game instead of watching In the Name of the King unfold. This feature also employs over-the-top performances by Lillard and Liotta, who, along with Reynolds, will obviously appear in anything for money.
I have particularly strict rules about leaving a movie to use the restroom, but here I was praying for such urges to necessitate me to walk out. It was so hard to willingly come back to my seat once I did.
If there's one good thing to say about this medieval disorder, it's that the film doesn't bother insulting the audience by getting them emotionally involved: once a character dies, it doesn't waste time, but hurdles onto the next scene sparing the audience the wasted time to mourn over an inconsequential character. It's not much to praise, but I have scoured the ends of the Earth to find one positive aspect that can be attributed to this horrible disaster. This is the kind of senseless, debilitating experience that gives your brain cavities. FInal Grade: F (why oh why does FIlmCrave not allow us to give a film zero stars?)
