In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale [DVD] [2008] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

I'll be honest - I didn't think this was too bad. Ok, so it shamelessly rips off the million times better LOTR movies, but it was fairly enjoyable! I grew up in the time of Hawk The Slayer, Beastmaster, Sword And The Sorceror, Dragonslayer, Krull etc. Trust me, some of these were no Lord Of The Rings either! For every Conan the Barbarian, Excalibur or Dragonslayer (classics!) there was The Iron Master, The Sword Of The Barbarians & Ator The Fighting Eagle!!! Red Sonja and Willow were a bit iffy too, to say nothing of Sword Of The Valiant...
At least, this is innocent of any movie or album's cardinal sin, in that it is never boring! There's plenty of action, the CG is decent in most places - there's some reasonably impressive 'Marching Army' visuals, and the battle choreography is ok, apart from some kung fu elements which are misplaced. Have to say that the 'evil' army, a beast like race known as The Krug are basically a rip off of The Orcs, right down to the subterranean caverns that they live in! The Krug make up & costumes are a bit shoddy and won't give Weta Workshop any sleepless nights!
At least, the armour & costumes are more impressive for the 'good' army!
It's not as dark as The Rings epics and certainly suitable for younger viewers - there's no sex or strong violence, the battle scenes are relativeley bloodless. The film is often light hearted, and after a bit of a shaky start, improves considerably with time
It's basically like a pantomime - lot's of well known faces turn up, in something that is just out to entertain!
Jason Statham; unusually cast but more than ok as the hero, Burt Reynolds; improves as the story evolves, John Rhys-Davies; always good in any movie!
Kristanna Loken; as gorgeous as in Terminator 3.
Ray Liotta; have to say totally miscast as the evil sorceror!(a REALLY poor villain), Matthew Lillard; as entertaining as a bout of dermatitis!
It's not Return Of The King, It's not Troy, BUT if you can happily watch Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or Xena:The Warrior Princess, then there's a fair chance you'll enjoy it.
I know this movie has been really slated, and I can't disagree with a lot of the bad press, BUT come on, how many of us happily sit through Warlords Of Atlantis on Channel 5 or Land That Time Forgot on BBC2 ?? The FX in those films were awlful, even for the 1970's BUT we enjoyed them, we suspended disbelief!
There's a few decent extras on the disc, it hardly costs the earth, so if you like your fantasy, and are a bit forgiving, then at least rent it. It's more than passable entertainment for 2 hours. If you hate it, then dig out the old 'uns like Jason And The Argonauts or The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad...

This movie is so unbelievably bad that I have to break it down into parts for this review.

Overview:

Based on a video game, it comes over as The Lord of the Rings lite, complete with Orc-like Krugs, John Rhys Davies, and a guy with a Legolas hairstyle. Bad guy Gallian (Ray Liotta) swirls around in clouds of smoke, and does his business through the eyes, ears and lips of really big Krugs who ride horses.

The only redeeming parts are the fight scenes with Statham, and even the battle scenes get monotonous after a while. And speaking of the battle scenes, we get the infantry and the archers and so on, but why do we have ninjas and Amazonian tree women in the mix-up? (Mind you, Kristanna Loken of the L-Word looks really good wrapped in leaves)

Leelee Sobieski is underutilized as the daughter of Rhys Davies character Merick, but comes into her own at the end, while Matthew Lillard does his Scooby Doo thing mainly for comic relief.

Short Attention Span Summary (SASS)

1. A farmer named Farmer farms his land with his family
2. Marauding Krugs under the command of Gallian attack
3. See Farmer fight
4. Fight Farmer, fight
5. Farmer fights in vain, but lives to fight again
6. The King wants Farmer in his army, but Farmer wants to be a one-man show
7. No man is an island
8. Farmer signs up, but has problems with the armor, which doesn't suit his image
9. Battle scenes
10. Change of leadership occurs
11. Grand finale with bad guy proves that books have power
12. Women totally rock

Characters:

Jason Statham's role

There once was a farmer named Farmer
Who was rugged, but really no charmer
When the Krugs came for battle
He killed them like cattle
Without ever wearing his armor

Ray Liotta's role

There once was a power drunk mage
Who totally failed to engage
He is so badly cast
It will leave you aghast
As he stinks up his time on the stage

John Rhys Davies' role

Though this ain't The Lord of the Rings
We're glad for the class that he brings
And though he's on his own
There's a Legolas clone
To help the return of the kings

Burt Reynolds' role

We're more than a little bit hurt
To see what's become of old Burt
More tired than mean
He's a creaky machine
Out of gas, and now fully inert

Conclusion:

This movie's no more than a joke
Filled with nothing but mirrors and smoke
With ninjas and magic
The plotline is tragic
And it's NOT Uwe Boll's master stroke.

Amanda Richards

There are only two things that you need to know about this movie.
1. It is a Uwe Boll film. Uwe Boll is universally recognized as one of the worst hacks in film history having created such great hits as House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, and Alone In The Dark. He buys the rights to recognizable games and then makes a movie which is really a generic combination of the best scenes from other movies thrown randomly together. Although his films rarely even make their money back he took advantage of a German tax loophole (since closed) which allowed you to get tax credits for your film whether it makes a profit or not.

2. The clever goblin strategy is to light themselves on fire and then catapult themselves at the enemy.

If either of those things sound attractive to you then this is a movie to check out. I love the sheer irrationality and unintentional humor of a good Boll film. This film represents his largest-scale production since the film he's choosing to rip off is the Lord of the Rings, complete with an irrelevant Helm's Deep raining fight sequence ripoff that has nothing to do with any of the main characters and doesn't affect the plot in any way. His villain is the grossly miscast Ray Liotta who has gone down a long way since Goodfellas. His every scene is comic gold since he is actually trying to overact and failing. So check out this film if that's your thing. If you only like films that have such overrated features as 'quality', 'originality' or 'plot' then check out some other film.