Sunday, March 13, 2011

Short Review of In The Name of The King (2008)

Are any words less welcome in the movie lexicon than 'inspired by the video game...'? In the Name of The King is based on the role playing Dungeon Siege games. Directed in a manner completely devoid of aplomb by Uwe Boll, it's catastrophically bad. The cast is surprisingly starry with the mighty Jason Statham as the hero, Clare Forlani as his kidnapped wife, Hellboy's Ron Perlman as his mentor and a mind-boggling Burt Reynolds as the titular king. However, there is something about this film that elevates it into the fabled 'so-bad-it's-good' category; Ray Liotta's turn as evil wizard Gallian. It's a tour-de-force of epic overacting as Ray chews insanely on every piece of scenery he can get his chubby hands on. 
Add in the terrible script, inept fight scenes and cut-price orcs and you have a film so hysterically bad it becomes compulsive viewing. It cost $60m and took a total of $10.3m worldwide and is widely considered to be one of the worst films ever made. Incredibly, there is a sequel on the horizon in which Dolph Lundgren plays an ex-special forces soldier thrown back in time to fulfil a prophecy. I'm not kidding

And I can't wait to see it...

Rating *

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