Was That Film Really That Bad??? In The Name of the King (2006)

From the amazingly bad Alone In The Dark to the just plain atrocious Far Cry, Uwe Boll's videogame adaptations are infamous for their poor quality. Hell, his non-videogame output is often worse, so it remains a mystery as to how he managed to get a $60m budget and a cast including Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Matthew Lillard, Claire Forlani and Ron Perlman together for his take on the Dungeon Siege licence. Yet somehow, he did, and in the process created a movie that Fangoria.com at the time described as his best film yet. Well, yeah, if you've had a dodgy belly and have been producing type 7's on the Bristol scale all week, and you start dropping 4's, you're going to be happy with the improvement. That doesn't change the fact that the end result is still shit. But was that film really that bad??? 

Interesting formatting.

I suppose you want the plot first, so here goes. Farmer (Jason Statham, and yes that is the character's name, at least to begin with), is living the quiet life near the town of Stonebridge (which doesn't have a stone bridge at all) with his wife, Solana (Claire Forlani) and son, Zeph (Colin Ford). One day, the Krug (not related at all to the Champagne brand!), a base race magically controlled by the evil Magus Gallian (Ray Liotta), attack the town. Zeph is killed whilst Solana and other inhabitants are kidnapped. Farmer, aided by his friend, Norick (Ron Perlman), and his brother in law, Bastion (Will Sanderson looking all budget Geralt from The Witcher) go off to find Solana and the rest of the townsfolk. Before that happens, King Konreid (Burt Reynolds) rocks up with his Army Commander, Tarish (Brian White) and Magus, Merick (John Rhys-Davies). The trio of avengers head off, whilst we get a bit more plot about Gallian seducing Merick's daughter, Muriella (Leelee Sobieski) in order to use her magic powers to combine with his own. Along the way, we also meet the wood nymphs led by Elora (Kristanna Loken) and Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard), the King's shallow and vain nephew. We get to see Fallow turn evil, armies switch sides and, in a twist no one could have ever guessed, Farmer turn out to be Konreid's long lost son, Camden. This being a fantasy film, good triumphs over evil and all is well by the final reel.

He can frown too...

As you can see, $60m can get you quite a cast, even if said cast are just there for the money. Statham is his usual good value self, putting the effort into that strong, silent exterior whilst scything down enemies by the dozen. Sadly for him, there is little humour in his role and, if you've seen him in a few other films, you'll know that when he gets to stretch his comedic side, he brightens up the screen. I suppose they can't do much with that since he's just lost his son but I'll get to the tone of the film in a moment. Forlani is not given much to do except look pretty and finish off the movie, whilst Perlman is solid as ever, not quite phoning in his performance (to the degree this film really deserves), but also not giving it any gusto either. Rhys-Davies is suitably serious in his supporting role but you can't help think he's just carrying a variation on his character from much (unfairly) maligned 90's sci-fi show Sliders. Sobieski is mostly there for eye candy, though does give rise to some of the most disturbing scenes in the film, whilst Loken and her team of nymphs just about justify their plot line in the movie though, let's be honest, all of that "vine" work (think rope/ribbons) means every time they are on screen, it looks like a stilted and poorly performed Vegas act.

Lillard Factor 2!

As much as the ladies are relegated to caricatures and plot devices, it's the cast of Lillard, Reynolds and Liotta that raise eyebrows the most. Lillard first and, if you have ready my aged post on Wing Commander, you'll know that his slacker schtick was a one note wonder, even if it did make it into several performances. Here, he doesn't go full Lillard (no-one wants full Lillard), but he gets pretty close to it. Definitely an 8 on the Lillard scale of wide-mouthed slavering and whining. Also, his accent... if it's trying to be "British", whatever the actual fuck that is, then he's certainly geographically close... well within territorial waters of the British Isles anyway... Still, he does snivelling well so he isn't the worst thing in the movie.

Lillard Factor 8!

The late, great Burt Reynolds plays the King in what can only be described as a Burt Reynolds way. He has the gravitas down to a tee, yet also comes across as bored and knowing he is in a really crap movie but that contracted fee will do nicely, thank you very much. There is a hint of a knowing wink from him at times and I am sure on at least two occasions, he actually breaks the fourth wall and gives the audience the "What the hell am I doing here/See what I have to deal with" look. Honestly, he is probably the best thing in ITNOTK. 

He knows, and he wants you to know too...

Finally, we have Liotta. You know the guy. Goodfellas, No Escape (a forgotten 90's gem), Hannibal, and Cop Land. Here, panto level bad guy who is, like Reynolds, aware of the quality of the production but is sure as hell gonna enjoy himself. Kudos to the costume department for giving him an outfit worthy of a Vegas magician (is he sharing the billing with the nymphs, I wonder) and kudos to Liotta himself for camping it up as only the best villains do in the month of December here in the UK. Oh yes, they do! 

Is that sword supposed to go through her like that?

As for the actual film, well, this has its issues.

Accents first and essentially, it's come as you please. Outside of Lillard's "British???" tones, no one puts on an accent. Now I get it, this is a fantasy film, but accent defines place and place has a hefty burden in creating a believable world. By having your cast speaks as they wish, it destroys any real believability you might have about the Kingdom of Ehb. 

That is terrible... and, by the way, welcome to Canadia!

Not that Boll in interested in believability, given that his approach to film making seems to be throw whatever you can at the screen and see what sticks. Those wood nymphs can get anywhere on vines, a single vertical vine per nymph. Tarzan at least swung from place to place. As for the tone of the film, literally five minutes after Farmer has buried his son, there is a "comedy" gorge crossing scene that is supposed to raise laughs involving our trio of avengers. Tonally, it's as deaf as a post. Also, the idea of a much older man (Gallian) seducing a much younger women (Muriella) is pretty off-putting and not really what this film needs, unless it's to show how dark and serious it wants to be... except you have the comedy gorge scene. Let us not forget, however, the ninjas. Yep, they have ninjas in here, which combined with some truly terrible wire work (and I say this having recently watched DOA: Dead or Alive), add nothing to the film. They're just another ingredient in the melting pot of the battles...

Budget Geralt in the background... fuuuuuuucccccckkkkkk!

Oh, the battles. Hadn't talked about them yet. Right, here we go.

There are three big battles in this film and, in my humble opinion, they are the reason this thing lasts over two hours. Now think back to the time when they filmed this. Peter Jackson had completed the original Lord of the Rings trilogy and, after spending $281m in total, seen a box office take of $2.991bn and given us 558 minutes of theatrical hobbiting and dwarf fiddling. That would rise to 686 minutes for the extended cuts, but there is a limit as to how much hobbiting and dwarf fiddling one person can take. There were many battles, many character scenes and a fair amount of interesting, but also only mildly diverting, padding. What Boll seems to have wanted to do here was re-create that epic fantasy film vibe with two thirds of TLOTR: Fellowship's budget ($60m vs $93m) but with similarly epic battles and less character. And he's certainly done that! Each battle in ITNOTK is suitably epic, in the sense that it has a fair few extra's and, for the first two at least, filmed in daylight so you can actually see what's going on. The final battle is held at night and you get the feeling money had become a little more scarce by that point. The problem with the battles is that they last too long. Each is north of ten minutes, with a lot of close ups of Statham swinging his chopper but not much story. 

What do you mean, story?

Look, battles tend to have stages, certain things happen in a certain order, whether due to doctrine, design or fuck up. Jackson kind of does this in TLOTR trilogy and Boll likes that idea, so he certainly tries to copy that feeling for the second battle... in a forest. So what could be a good on screen punch up with set stages to it so the viewer can follow what's going on actually ends up being a confused melee where no-one can see shit and hasn't a clue. Which is kind of true to life but makes bloody poor entertainment. As a viewer, you get tired of watching Statham and his chopper (I would never have thought I would ever utter that sentence...) and also bored of watching the film. You just want to see the fight end so that the main story, for what it's worth, can continue. And let's not forget the ninjas! Oh, and this is a hoot, the background fighting - it's some of the most inept "pretend" fighting I have ever seen committed to film. Add a bit of Benny Hill music and there's a parody in the making. Point is, Boll has no idea what makes a good battle, no sense of what a military force can/can't do and no interest in making it even broadly realistic within the confines of the fantasy world he has to play with. 

No idea why there are Ninja's, and don't much care either.

Less of a hoot is the CGI - it's terrible, be it the establishing shots of textureless castles or the back projection of that gorge scene (no, I won't let it lie). Any kind of onscreen effect just looks terrible for a film. I say that as you'd kind of expect it for a Sci-fi Channel (now Syfy) TV show of the period. Cheap and cheerful, I know that money will only stretch so far, but maybe Boll should have calmed things down a bit. Speaking of Syfy shows (and Canadian-produced TV shows in general), you will see places that look familiar, be it from Battlestar Galactica (2000's re-make), The X-Files, Stargate SG1 and many more. Whereas TLOTR gave us New (Middle) Zealand in all of its glory for the first time on the big screen, by the time ITNOTK came out, viewers were already very familiar with what Canada had to offer. Ok, that's more of a niggle, but also takes away from the epic sense of fantasy when you know you've seem the same valley a month earlier in Eureka... ( and yes, I know, the justification on this paragraph is different - blogger is being a pain!)

It's so difficult to tell which part is real, isn't it... 

Earning back just $13.1m at the box office, this film was definitely a bomb. However, Boll made two sequels,  ITNOTK: Two Worlds and ITNOTK: The Last Mission, which had budgets of $4.5m and $3.5m respectively and exist purely because he still held the rights. Mixing modern day and distant past settings (although still attached to the Kingdom of Ehb), they ignore the events of the first film completely. 

Truth be told, ITNOTK was a tedious film to watch. The characters are broad outlines yet paper thin, the action is tiresome and even when the cast are knowingly having fun, the sheer weight of boredom stifles what joy you might find. Yes, this is Boll's "best" film and as part of that is being able to afford a decent enough cast to lift it from the dross he usually makes, but having money is not enough to make a good movie. It's a terrible waste of your time and I even begrudge the £1 it cost from CEX. Yes, it really is that bad. Except the song that plays over the end credits, that gets a pass. And it tells you the torture is over.