In the Name of the King (2007)

Director: Uwe Boll

Starring: Jason Statham (The Transporter), Burt Reynolds (Bandit), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Leelee Sobieski (Helen Hunt Lookalike)

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: Rise and fight

Plot: A man named Farmer sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and avenge the death of his son -- two acts committed by the Krugs, a race of animal-warriors who are controlled by the evil Gallian.








My Rating: 5/10

Would I watch it again? Nope.

I had a most unusual feeling today when I finished watching this in the theater. I neither liked it nor disliked it. I don't think I'll be able to explain it, either. Boll's reputation is notoriously bad. His lifetime tomatometer at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ is at a 5% approval by the nation's (USA) top 150-200 critics and the highest rating for just one of his films (as director) at imdb is 4.41! Still at imdb, of the 14 films he has directed, all but 5 have a rating below 3.0. That's out of 10, folks.








So today I broke by UB cherry and I have to say it wasn't half bad. But then it wasn't half good, either. I received a free ticket last week when I bought a $10 DVD I was going to buy anyway so what the hell, right? Why not, right? I fully expected to walk out from all the bad press this guy gets. I didn't which is especially strange considering its 2 hour and 4 minute runtime. What Boll got right was the pacing. There's plenty of action and the plot moves right along. There's not much time to sit around and poke at things with a stick. It looks like a moderately-sized budget (to a degree) Lord of the Rings knockoff and it pretty much is...right down to a circling overhead shot of 4 of our heroes walking across a natural rock bridge much like the the first LOTR and one of them is Gimli. Oh, and the music's quite good for what it is. Good as in it wasn't bad and there was an interesting main theme.

Now for the bad. I can't make up my mind whether the casting director should be taken out back and shot or given an medal. Just look at the cast! Bandit as a German king? The first 3 times he appeared on screen I chuckled. I got used to it eventually but what I didn't get used to was his bad acting. I haven't seen much of Burt's recent work on screen in the past dozen years except for his excellent turn in BOOGIE NIGHTS and his sad appearance in THE LONGEST YARD remake (which sucked) but he's really gone downhill. Woof. I will give him some credit for one scene where he shined. He's sitting at a large dining table eating with his nephew who's a snivelling crybaby trying to win Bandit's favor by grovelling and shit when Bandit's just leaning back into his chair, saying virtually nothing, and looking at him like the pathetic shit that he is and enjoying the torture this punk is putting himself through. THAT was actually a great scene. But that's it.



Gimli brought some weight to the film and he delivered some pretty cheesy dialogue but Gimli, being Gimli, pulled it off better than most. The Transporter spoke 90% of his dialogue under his breath and there were at least two lines I couldn't hear clearly because it was so damn soft. Hellboy was cool but he didn't last long before he snuffs it. OOOOOOOPS. I forgot to say, "SPOILERS". As if anyone's going to see this.

The Helen Hunt Lookalike proves once again she can't act. I don't know what the hell she did with the money her parents gave her to spend on acting lessons but something tells me it was probably something along the lines of multi-colored butt plugs. Just this morning my left testicle pulled out a better performance than she did. And I didn't even have to yell, "Action!" I smell OSCAR...

I smell something alright.

And then there's the WTF casting decision of the year (I'm pretty confident about this one) - Goodfellas as the evil magician?!? Don't get me wrong. I was having a blast watching him play with what he had. Hell. I can't blame him for doing it. He's great but he doesn't belong there. Which reminds me...I guess it's a good thing that none of the non-English (UK) actors tried to sport a European accent but it still felt laughable - especialy with Bandit and Goodfellas.

The CGI effects were, for the most part, good for what they were trying to be and nothing more. Sometimes dodgy and sometimes fantastic. Boll's picked some beautiful locations but I'm betting that most of the money was spent on effects.

I just can't say go see it and I can't say don't see it. It's certainly not as bad as it's being portrayed. So if you want a time killer that has some amusement factor (the casting alone is riotous) then knock yourself out. You can do a lot worse. But then you might be content to have someone jingle car keys in front of your face while you have some popcorn and coke. Depending on the keys it could be worth it.