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In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale - Unrated Director's Cut
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (27th May 2009). |
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The Film
 While some actors are hired for their easily bankable talent and ability to draw in an audience, those that specialize in the ridiculous action or B-movie circuit have a proven ability to draw me in no matter what the project. Bruce Campbell’s insane ability to draw in a rabidly loyal fanbase was lampooned in “My Name Is Bruce” (2008) but really gets at what a simple fan addiction can do for any given film. Outside of the mighty chin ofBruce Campbell, I can only think of two actors have been able to achieve the same pull at my attention through this Campbell-factor, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson because of my profound love of his wrestling career (I even own his autobiography “The Rock Says”) along with the pure bad-ass status that only he and Jason Statham have been able to consistently provide. After first seeing the poster for “In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” (2007) my heart soared with joy over the potential of Jason Statham in an over the top “Lord of the Rings” (2001-2003) rip-off, until I saw the fine print of the director; Uwe Boll: The Anti-Campbell, cleverly stowed away from Jason Statham’s huge face. It’s ironic that this “Lord of the Rings” rip-off could provoke such an unequivocal battle between good and evil, tearing at my soul like the weight of the one ring. Could the power of Jason Statham be enough to salvage such an epic failure or would the forces of evil overwhelm even the action stylings of Statham? In a word, no, but to draw it out into an epic trial of will to bring this disastrous disc back to the fires from which it was born, let the quest to discover this tragedy begin. Set in middle earth fantasy land x, known to it’s residents as the Kingdom of Ehb,“In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” follows a man simply known as Farmer (Jason Statham) who lives a humble existence with his family attempting to make a normal living out of his humble farm. That is until his village is attacked by evil monsters that kill his son and capture his wife, sending him on an epic quest to rescue his wife from these evil creatures with the help of his neighbor Norick (Ron Perlman). Unknown to Farmer, these Krugs are just pawns in an attempt to take over the kingdom by evil magus Gallian (Ray Liotta) and Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard). In order to rescue his wife and stop the reign of terror brought about by the Krugs, Farmer journeys towards the base of the Krug uprising with the help of Farmer’s brother in law, Norick and some new allies met along the journey. The plot itself is worthy of an Uwe Boll production, too simplistic to fill it’s timespan with enough to tear from other films in a similar genre to add to visual directions. The directing doesn’t do anything more than leaving characters within the frame to deliver the message across, though not always in focus, while ranging between bland and frustrating happenings on screen. Statham’s role doesn’t focus enough on his acting talent, action flair or any of those things that make him Jason Statham, lacking any sort of crucial badass or ridiculous line to bring the low quality of the film to an enjoyable level. It’s definitely not Statham’s fault, he seems to be performing as well as the script and directions will allow, but it’s like trying to dance when neck deep in quicksand. Sure you can try, but nobody will be able to see or recognize it. Perlman seems to give his best to help out, but none of it can build back up from this near parody of the epic fantasy genre. But when looking to it simply from a fantasy production perspective they seem to know that the film should be set in a sort of medieval era, yet the CGI work is clearly terrible when you see it on Blu-ray and the artistic direction resembles a fan film without the passion that would be involved. The Krug monsters look like a strange combination of the Golgothan ‘Shit Demon’ from “Dogma” (1999) and the Orcs of “Lord of the Rings,” that could have used more time in designing the costumes and makeup rather than simply applying them. Matte Paintings and CGI used for backgrounds just lack any sort of charm in the epic scale they’re constructed, making some combination of design and directing that makes them lack a sense of wonder that is inspired by other films in the genre. Overall, “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” proves that even Jason Statham cannot save an Uwe Boll film from self destructing, especially in the ‘Unrated Director’s Cut’ that manages to run an astonishing 162 minutes. Though it may seem normal for the fantasy epic to have epic length, there’s not enough plot to go around and the major actors seem just as bored as the viewer. Ray Liotta has points where even his character looks a little surprised that he’s in the film, making me wonder what happened to the money he’s made from “Goodfellas” (1990), but considering he’s publicly said that he can’t watch himself in movies, the quality of his projects may not matter all that much since he never has to sit down and watch them. Though Statham may have a couple of good action sequences, but the way Uwe cuts and directs around them takes away from his talents. His presence may give me a little more inclination to like the most terrible of movies, but “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” is just too bad to recommend or even consider joking about watching.
Video
The 1080p 24/fps 2.35:1 widescreen presentation with AVC MPEG-4 compression at 25 MBPS encoding looks surprisingly good on Blu-ray with the clarity and contrast that the format affords, but the lighting and directing seem to contradict the high-definition intentions with bland colors and poor castle lighting that can muddy the image at times. Honestly for the content that’s presented the video transfer is clear of pixilation for the most part, though some of the scenes contain heavy grain, I’m more inclined to look at the fairly consistently bad production qualities rather than the transfer itself.
Audio
Presented in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, the Howard Shore imitation soundtrack comes through clearly and doesn’t suffer from any technical problems with audio pops, though the production levels on the sound effects and the score seem a bit off. Though the problems don’t get as bad as un-synched dialogue or just drowning everything out, the sound doesn’t quite move or feel right in the levels in the action scenes and during the dialogue is too disinteresting to gain engaging sound. Optional subtitles are included in both English and Spanish.
Extras
This "Unrated Director’s Cut" edition contains a small assortment of special features, including an audio commentary track, 3 deleted/extended scenes, a making-of featurette and bonus trailers. First is the audio commentary with the infamous Anti-Campbell himself, director Uwe Boll. Boll hits on many of the typical commentary points, discussing the casting and production, but shows an incredible disrespect to those few who would call themselves fans ironically by literally walking away from the commentary to get a drink of water, creating drawn out pauses and gaps in the track. There are a few funny points like his talk of trying to cast Kevin Costner in the lead role and his belief in the goodness of the film, but the best line may be after a nearly 5 minute silence with the comment “I came back with some cake. Mmm.” which made me wish I could have just gone and baked a cake from scratch rather than having to sit through the 165 minutes of film. “The Making of ‘In The Name of the King” featurette runs for 10 minutes and 20 seconds, showing some on set behind-the-scenes footage. Rather than giving a full featurette treatment it’s all shot behind-the-scenes on handheld cameras while Uwe attempts to direct the film, talking with actors and other people on set. There are no sit down interviews or talking head features that would give insight into what Boll would try and call process, my guess is that many of the actors may have simply taken the money and ran. Finally are the 3 deleted and extended scenes, fairly amazing to me that there would have been something still left out of such a terribly long film: - “Rise of a New King” runs for 3 minutes and 9 seconds, this is an extended version of the sword fight between Fallow and Tarish. - “Farmer and Norick Fend off Krug” runs for 5 minutes and 21 seconds, another extended sequence that shows more of the fight between Farmer, Norick and the Krug at the beginning of the film. - “Farmer, Norick and Bastian Take Rest” runs for 1 minute and 7 seconds, the trio take a rest in the middle of their journey due to Bastian’s fatigue. Bonus trailers included on the disc are: - “Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia” runs for 50 seconds. - “Max Payne” runs for 1 minute and 30 seconds. - “Taken” runs for 1 minute and 48 seconds. - “The Happening” runs fur 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
Overall
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