In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale – Awfully Good Movies

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE (2007)

DIRECTOR: Uwe Boll          CAST: Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds

Before you see Jason Statham reuniting with Guy Ritchie to avenge the death of his son in Wrath of Man, Awfully Good Movies is looking back at Statham’s collaboration with a far less respected director, starring in Uwe Boll’s epic fantasy fail In the Name of the King! By 2007, Uwe Boll was already the most dreaded name in cinema with his poorly made adaptations of video game properties, but that didn’t stop the German film industry from giving him a whopping $60 million to adapt the action RPG game Dungeon Siege into a sword-and-sorcery epic that could lead to the next Lord of the Rings-size franchise.

After all, not only did it have Jason Statham going medieval on people’s asses in medieval times, but it had a respectable supporting cast behind the bald British brute: Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, John Rhys-Davies, Matthew Lillard, and Burt Goddamned Reynolds as the noble king trying to save his kingdom from tyranny with a little help from Statham as a simple farmer…by the name of “Farmer”.

But the name of Statham’s character is far from the only problem with this LOTR wannabe, between its endless/badly edited fight scenes, cheap special effects, and introducing a bigger cast of characters in two hours than Game of Thrones did in eight seasons. If Uwe Boll can fuck up a movie with this big of a budget and cast, I can only imagine that his sequel starring a time-traveling Dolph Lundgren isn’t gonna be much better. On the other hand, though…time-traveling Dolph Lundgren.

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Don’t worry, our previous subjects of Awfully Good Movies are mercifully free of Uwe Boll…for now, at least:

KING KONG LIVES

BEVERLY HILLS COP III

NINJA III: THE DOMINATION