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Whistle Stopper - In the Name of the King - A Dungeon Siege Tale
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List Price: $27.98
Our Price: $7.59
Your Save: $ 20.39 ( 73% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Jason Statham, Kristana Loken, John Rhys-Davies
Directed By: Uwe Boll
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE (DVD
EAN: 0024543509110
Format: AC-3
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-04-15
Running Time: 127
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2008-01-11
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Seriously?!?!?!
Comment: I wish I could give this movie even less stars than one. This was truly one of the most awful movies I've ever had the misfortune to see in my life. The only thing redeeming in this whole film was that I didn't waste $10 on it. Instead I wasted only $3. I came into this expecting to see a medieval fantasy and was left with utter crap.
I really like Jason Statham and he tries hard with this crap script. The dialogue was just so god awful I was left feeling I could have done better. The action scenes weren't bad, but it's not like we haven't seen it before.
Leelee was extra, the king was extra, Matthew Lillard's character...stupid. If his character was supposed to be funny I'm stil waiting for the first joke to start. He was just awful. I'm more than willing to say it was the crap script because he can normally make me chuckle. Not in this one.
Not to mention the scenes flipped from one to another and you're left wondering why.
And don't get me started on Ray Liotta. Good actor, but here it's like you're hoping he just did this because he was bored and wanted to do a crap film. Not convincing at all.
Overall this movie is crap. The more I think about the more pissed off I become that I spent even $3 to see this. I mean if you still want to watch it then wait until it comes on TV. Then make sure you have nothing else to do, are bored out of your skull and high. Then watch it. You'll still probably hate it.
If I were the game creators, which this movie is based off of, I'd be so highly pissed off I'd demand they pull this from the shelf. Players too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worse Than The Power Rangers Movie
Comment: I am not going to waste my time writing a long review. However, at first glance of the "monsters" in this flick, you will think you are watching a very cheap Mighty Morphin Power Rangers type kiddie-show. Turn off the tape...and back away quickly! Stratham is one of my personal favorites....but he sure does have a few stinkers! If you are a fan of Stratham - check out The Bankjob! It is stellar!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Painful...Just Painful.
Comment: You know that nasty, bilious, semi-queasy feeling you get whenever Steve Carell is messing up The Office, taking valuable screen time away from Jim, Pam, Dwight & the crew? Yeah, that goes away after Michael shuts up.
This just went on, and on, and on. If you feel compelled to watch it, take three parts vodka to 4 parts Pepto-Bismol, shake, strain over ice & garnish with lime. Medicate as needed to get through to the end of this Plotless, poorly conceived, poorly shot, horribly written, 3rd rate CGI'd, cheesy, predictable, cliche' infested disaster. John Rhys Davies & Burt Reynolds looked like they would have liked to burn their agents at the stake for getting them attached to this mess, and with good reason. And what, in the name of Our Glorious God, was The Transporter doing in this mess? Transporter 3 would have been a much better use of Jason Statham's time.
(as the consummate damnation- DOOM was better. I cannot believe I said that.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: "The King Is Dead!"
Comment: I'll admit it - I'm impressed. After sitting through "House of the Dead" and his other features, I doubted that Uwe Boll was capable of making anything that even resembled a good movie...but apparently I was wrong: through a $60 million budget, an all-star cast, or some other means, "In the Name of the King" is, without a doubt, the most solid picture that our director has made in recent memory. But then again, being a Boll film, this means little: if judged against anything other than his own films, "King" looks sloppy, mediocre, and faces stiff charges of blatantly copying from Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Rest assured, it's a bad movie - the question simply is "How bad?" The answer? Well, get ready for a long review...
In the kingdom of Ehb, the power-hungry mage Galian (Ray Liotta, "Hannibal") has turned his power against the elderly King Konreid (Burt Reynolds, "Boogie Nights"). Aided by the king's treacherous nephew Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard, "Scooby-Doo"), he prepares to overthrow the kingdom, and might very well succeed...were it not for the efforts of the king's loyal magus (John Rhys-Davis, "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and a simple farmer (Jason Statham, "The Transporter") whose family was killed during Galian's attack on his home.
Because it needs saying, here's the rest of the cast: in addition to Statham, Rhys-Davis, Liotta, Reynolds, and Lillard, there's Ron Perlman ("Hellboy") as Farmer's surrogate father, Leelee Sobieski ("Joan of Arc") as the magus' daughter and Galian's lust interest, Claire Forlani ("Meet Joe Black") as Farmer's wife, Brian J. White ("Stomp the Yard") as the commander of the king's armies, and Kristanna Loken ("Terminator 3") as the leader of a mystical tree-dwelling folk. Without a doubt, this is one of the most unique casts that have ever been assembled in a single film; I have no doubt that even years from now, fans will still be discussing just how Boll got all of these folks together.
With that being said, the acting really is a mixed bag: John Rhys-Davis is the best performer in the movie, opposite of Liotta, who performs as though Anthony Hopkins is still feeding him his own brain. With the exception of Lillard (who is either comical or just plain bad) and White (who puts the most effort of anybody into his role), everyone else falls into a grey category - having highs and lows, but not really standing out.
You can almost hear Boll directing Statham: "Just do it like in `The Transporter' - it will be good!"
What made this movie so surprising is the amount that Boll managed to improve his formula: gone are the flashbacks, the gratuitous nudity, the shock violence, and general mindlessness that perpetuated throughout his earlier attempts - what we have here is a focused story that has definite heroes, villains, and changes in tone and emotion. But while the plot is more alert than usual, it's still considerably scatterbrained: the story jumps from place to place as though it were necessary that the viewer know exactly what is going on in every other location while an event is taking place. This causes not only for disorientation, but also cuts the mood of any given scene in half, seeing as the event it transitions to is usually of the completely opposite tone (i.e. Farmer's family dines happily with his wife's parents while he's fighting for his life). Also, though I enjoyed the simple labeling of good and evil in characters, their intentions are always way too obvious for my liking: you KNOW that Fallow is a bad guy from the moment he shows up on the screen, stuffing his face while the king is deeply concerned. What's worse, this obviousness lets the viewer know what's going to happen hours before it does: you KNOW that Muriella will come to come to odds with Galian the moment the film opens, and you see the two of them kissing as though their mouths were full of novocain. It takes away much of the excitement...
Where technical aspects are concerned, the most notable improvement is that Boll has learned how to actually shoot a movie: the cinematography looks decent, and with the aid of choreographer Siu-Tung Ching ("House of Flying Daggers"), the action has never looked better. Alas, these are only superficial plusses, as well: the camera angles aren't anything that you'd expect beyond any other run-of-the-mill film, and even if you can get over the thought of kung fu in a medieval environment, the fights are edited so erratically that it's difficult to follow the action, especially in the event of a big battle scene where there are over a dozen characters on the screen. These "epic" battles are also a weak point: though there's only three of them, they should serve as high points of the film, but end up only slowing everything down. Boll is completely clueless as to how to shoot a fight of such proportions, for instead of pulling the camera back to show off scale, he brings the camera in real close, which ends up marginalizing any awe that such a scene should instill.
As an afterthought, the graphics are fairly intriguing: Galian's "portal" with which he controls the Krug is cool, as is the disapparating effect the magi use, and the final battle between Galian and Farmer is a triumph of the computer.
What bothers me the most about "King", however, is the very blatant ripping off of material that Boll acquired while watching "Lord of the Rings". The list really doesn't stand in favor of any contradictory opinion: the Krug are orc ripoffs, the armored riders will remind anybody of the Nazgul, the woodland people are two pointed ears away from elves, Galian's domain is Mordor by any other name, and the final battle is filmed at night, in the rain - undoubtedly modeled after the battle of Helm's Deep. Smaller scenes like Tarish and Muriella sparring (like Aragorn meeting Eowyn), Muriella donning armor to fight (like Eowyn) stand as a background to large plot devices like Farmer, Norick (Perlman), and Bastian (Will Sanderson, aka Legolas Clone) banding together a'la Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, as well as the revelation (SPOILER ALERT!) that Farmer is the king's son and heir...just like Aragorn was.
Then again, Boll frequently compared his movie to "LotR" before it was released, so I'm not really surprised.
On one hand, we've got some definite improvement coming out of the House of Boll, yet on the other, we've got a movie that has promised to keep the director away from other big budget projects like this for a long time. While I like the movie more than any Boll-basher should, there's enough nonsense in here to decree "In the Name of the King" a certified rotten tomato...and that's before you witness Solana's unconvincing crying scene, arrows that magically change direction, the longest deathbed sequence ever, and the incredibly soppy and dopey dialogue (I'm still laughing over "My girlish stupidity has damaged him"). Essentially, it comes down to that Uwe Boll tried to squeeze all three of the "Lord of the Rings" films into a two-hour movie, and didn't even do a good job of pretending that it were his own ideas. I haven't touched on whether or not the film remains true to its video game roots, but that's a moot point by now: Boll wasn't attempting to make an adaptation - he was trying his hand at being a director of "epic movies" like Peter Jackson or Ridley Scott. Time will tell whether he can surprise me again by actually redeeming himself...but at his snail's pace, I probably won't even like movies like this anymore by the time it's released.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed!
Comment: This is a very disappointing movie, and obviously very badly researched. The dialogue just does not fit the era. The movie is about characters of the 21st century placed during the middle ages. For example, an order to `fire' the arrows is given. Did you `fire' arrows at that era? You fire guns, but not arrows. The script is really very badly written, and the acting just as bad. The transition between scenes is also amateurish. This movie was a waste of really good talent.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The life of a simple family man named Farmer (Jason Statham) is changed forever when a horrifying army of animal-like warriors known as Krugs who are controlled by the evil Gallian (Ray Liotta) invade his village murder his son and kidnap his wife. Farmer sets out on a momentous journey to get his wife back and along the way encounters magic and adventure as the quest soon reveals his real destiny in the kingdom.System Requirements:Running Time: 127 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/SWORD & SORCERY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 024543509110 Manufacturer No: 2250911
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