Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

This movie gives you a constant feeling that somehow you've not been paying attention and missed something critical. However, that's not the case. Pay all the attention you want the movie still will make no sense. Like zero. Zip, zilch, nada. I've never witnessed anything like this. Mayyyybe there was a MST3K film or two that was as disjointed as this (but even a lot of those had critical points edited out on purpose thus making them incomprehensible). It was like my girl and I started involuntarily doing our own version of Joel & The Bots. We couldn't help ourselves. Within the first 15 minutes of the film we had asked aloud, about a half dozen times, some semblance of the question "The fuck is going on here?".


There is scene after scene of characters running around in peril and battle and yet none of them really relate to, help set up, or in any way make you care about any of the other scenes and/or characters. That's not to say its not boring...because it most certainly is. There is tons of stuff happening, all at once, and yet it still manages to bore you to pieces. Its astonishing in its mind numbing horribleness. There was a point where I made the conscious decision that i was going to stick this thing out. To ride with this pig all the way to the finish line because I found myself wondering, "Just how bad is this drek going to get?" Well...pretty fucking bad, I can tell you that.


I kept vacillating between which aspect of the film I hated the most.

• Was it the acting? On the plus/minus side Liotta & Rhys-Davies were good as always but wasted, Statham (no great shakes as an actor but he does what he does competently) said things whispery and fought. On the minus/minus side Sobieski was vapidly lost, White was hammy, Reynolds & Perlman looked bored, and last and most certainly least Matthew Lillard was flamboyantly terrible in his performance of the evil nephew of the king. Lillard was the only one in the film outside of Statham & Rhys-Davies (2 natural born Englishmen) to speak with an accent. Unlike the other 2 accents however, Lillard's came and went.
• Was it the story? What fucking story??! Just to point out how little sense this movie makes, listen to this: In the middle of the movie, the king's evil nephew convinces the king he wants a fresh start and begs forgiveness. The king invites his nephew to sup with him at table and slides him a plate of his own food. The nephew eats heartily. Within the next couple of scenes we learn that the food was poisoned. When the king learns of this he asks who poisoned him. He is told by his closest aides that his nephew did it. The king then bites his lip and looks anguished and laments his nephew's nefarious betrayal. ?? If this movie had any thread of intelligence at all wouldn't the king have insisted "No...no that doesn't make sense. My evil nephew ate more of the food than I did and only ate what I myself separated and gave him to eat. He was in the dungeon before that and not only had no way of getting to the food I was served before we see him enter but he had no way of knowing what portion of the food he would receive." Alas, no. In this film this is the reason the armies go after the nephew.
• Was it the directing? Its obvious some money was spent on this movie based on the number of extras in 1 or 2 scenes, the size and quality of a few sets, the costuming, the graphics and special effects, and more than a handful of helicopter/crane shots following people on horseback or running. Its as if Uwe Boll had the LOTR Director's Handbook For Running and followed it faithfully. However Uwe Boll seems to have an incredibly poor eye for staging these large and expensive scenes. The massacre at the marketplace scene is hilarious in the length of time, and coverage of, the frightened extras running around willy nilly. This is a lengthy and nonsensically staged battle in which Statham, Perlman, and a cross-eyed actor I'd never seen before named Will Sanderson are apparently the only peasants willing to fight the not-orcs. Those 3 fight and fight and fight with the beast-men and all the while there are dozens of men, women, and children running around behind them terrified. They don't go anywhere. They don't fight. They just...run. And scream. And get killed in poorly composed close-ups where you can see the battle-axes and swords miss them. There are countless scenes in which it seems Uwe Boll just made the decision after 1 crappy take, "That's good! Moving on!!". I really can't decide which aspect was the worst. Unfortunately its something you'd have to decide for yourself.

I take that back. I take that back immediately. Its not "unfortunate" for you to decide this. Consider it an experimental endeavor. I plead with any of you who are curious enough, anyone who wouldn't mind wasting the time...watch this movie. Maybe like myself you have a brother-in-law who burns every single movie he rents and you can get a copy for free. Maybe like myself you had a co-worker emphatically recommend it (I HIGHLY doubt that to be the case). I promise, you don't have to watch the whole thing. Just watch the first 15-20 minutes and ask yourself if you know what the fuck is happening and who the fuck these people are and why the fuck we should be expected to know (or care). I bet you'll agree with me.