‘King’ not worth any time, money
Epic hopeful falls flat with laughable, cheesy storyline
Posted on January 14, 2008
Many people love larger-than-life epic movies. What they don’t like is an over-the-top, painstakingly bad attempt to create an epic movie. “In the Name of the King” is just that, and it’s as bad as it can get.
“In the Name of the King” stars Jason Statham (“Transporter,” “Snatch”) as Farmer. Yes. that’s his name. His wife and kid are randomly attacked by the evil sorcerer Gallian played by Ray Liotta (“Goodfellas”) and his army of Krugs, a race of animal warriors. Farmer fights back to save them and along the way he conveniently finds out that he is the son of the king, who is played by Burt Reynolds (“Smokey and the Bandit”).
Where “Lord of the Rings” succeeds in bringing audiences a fantasy movie that they could enjoy, “In the Name of the King” succeeds in providing the next movie where most people will walk out of the theater. It’s really that bad.
First, it’s based off of a video games series called “Dungeon Siege.” Why they continue to make video game movies is beyond me. Second, and most important, Uwe Boll directs this monstrosity. He’s behind movies such as “House of the Dead,” “BloodRayne” and “Alone in the Dark.” How and why he gets the opportunities to make more movies is something my brain has yet been able to compute. A better question is why would any mainstream actor sign up for a project that has his name on it? It’s career suicide.
The whole movie looks and sounds as if it was made for the Sci-Fi channel. It’s so cheesy at points that you can’t help but laugh, and when it attempts to be funny, you simply just don’t care anymore enough to laugh. The dialogue is awful, the acting is even worse and the story is so absent at times that one just can’t find anything good to say about it. There is no question that this movie will tank at the box office and be on DVD next month.
So unless you’re part of the less than 1 percent of people who like Boll’s films, go and see something else this weekend. Or you can just stare at the wall for two hours. it’s cheaper and more fun than “In the Name of the King” could ever be.
