Boll-Shit: In the Name of the King 3

Mocking this Film is worth the risk of Uwe Boll threatening my health.  Today's film is In The Name of the King: The Last Mission, since...we needed another one of them.  Let's sum this series up so far, shall we?  We shall.  In the first Film, Boll actually gave a shit and made a big-budget flop.  It is an odd mix of being funny (mostly Matthew Lillard) and just generic as hell.  The second Film is an actual Sequel...kind of.  Much like how The Scorpion King 3 (the 2nd film is a crappy Prequel) shit all over the Original by 'adding to it,' In the Name of the King 2 is a Time-Travel Film with Dolph as...Jason Statham's son?  Oh and he's also somehow Burt Reynolds' grand-son.  No, really.  So that's where we are?  I tell you all of that...even though it doesn't matter.  Granted- they don't use the number in the Title, but I'm still supposed to treat this like a Sequel, right?  According to the prerequisite Making Of Featurette, Boll was not too happy with the results of the last film.  He 'learned his lesson' and got (in his words) 'a better Lead.'  He also made the rest of the Cast up of Bulgarian Actors, since they already sound European and don't have to fake Accents.  That's Uwe Boll logic for you.  The Story involves Dominic 'I was in Prison Break' Purcell as a Hired Gun who gets zapped to what may or may not be the Land from the previous Films via stupidity.  Can this new Hero save the day and do it...in the name of the King?  To find out, read on...

Purcell is a Hitman (wrong Franchise!) who is doing- wait for it- one last job: the Kidnapping of two young Heiresses.

Yeah, my 'last job' would totally be setting up two kids to be killed.  Our hero!

Fate intervenes, however, as he decides to take one of the girls' necklace and hold it up next to his matching tattoo.   The result: he gets sucked through Time (or to another Dimension...maybe)!

He is very confused when he's suddenly in the Woods.  He's even more confused when a Dragon shows up!

Speaking of confusion...

Purcell never musters more than a 3 on the Emotional Scale of 1-10 (11 being a manic Nic Cage).  He's just confused, bewildered or just generally-bored.

On top of that, his Character is just plain inept.  I guess it's more realistic than 'I'm suddenly a great Knight,' but why make him a Professional Killer then.  It's like one person wrote the beginning (where's he's good) and someone else wrote an 'unlikely hero' rest of the Film.  Weird.

Speaking of weird, the token Romance Sub-Plot has no build-up and no real pay-off.  Writing is power.

Sparing you alot of details (as it is a fairly-new Film), I will tell you that we get the token Forest Battle as well.  While Purcell is now a better Hero (thanks to roughly two days of basic Sword Training), he's still kind of bad.

The action spills back to our Time/World and the Dragon comes along.  Well, it is the only interesting thing in the Movie, so it might as well.

Fun Fact: the Boss in our Time/World and the evil would-be King are played by the same Actor.  If you think that there's any overt reference to this or any pay-off, you don't know Uwe Boll Films.

It's also worth noting that there is a matching pair of ladies in the Fantasy Time/World (but older) to the real one, but also no pay-off to that.  Are we going to blame this patchwork Script on the Writer's Strike from 2008 as well?

I won't SPOIL the Ending, but you can probably guess what happens.  However, there are some amazingly-dumb things that you may or may not guess.

Rent/buy at your own risk/leisure.  The End.

Wow, this is lame.  It was a hard task, but Boll made a film that was more disappointing than the last In the Name of the King Film!  Congratulations?  The Positives: The Dragon looks neat and the Bulgarian Forest is pretty.  That's it.  To be fair, the Dragon is not all that special, but the Effects are nice enough.  Everything else is either dull, disappointing or just plain bad.  This whole movie is just a series of 'meh' moments that just keep going until the Credits roll.  Boll has made passable Films (The Final Storm,Farcry), truly awful Films (Postal, Blubberella) and ones that just showed how little he cared (In the Name of the King 2, Bloodrayne 3).  This is definitely the latter, although it has some awful moments in it too.  According to the Featurette, he's proud of his 'Message Films' like Assault on Wall Street (also with Purcell) and Fist of the Reich.  Good for you- just to stick to making those instead!  Look what your shitty Directing is doing to poor Dominic Purcell here!

Next up, a film I was specifically-invited to Review.  I would be lying if I was happy to get the Invite by the time the film was over!  Stay tuned...

Boll-Shit: In the Name of the King 2- Two Worlds

Uwe Boll hates sequels as much as he clearly hates us.  With a multi-year career and about a dozen-plus films to his name, he only has two actual sequels.  There are two other Boll films with sequels- House of the Dead 2 and Alone in the Dark II- but he didn't Direct them.  What inspired him to make another Dungeon Siege movie?  Oh, excuse, this is not a Dungeon Siege movie- that would be silly.  It's not like there are Dungeons in this movie.  Mind you, there weren't any Dungeons in that movie either.  That movie was a huge budget for Boll- about $60 million- and didn't even come close to recouping.  After vowing to never do it again, he made this movie last year.  This movie is not big-budget, so gone are stars like Jason Statham and even lesser stars like Claire Forlani.  In their place- Dolph Lundgren.  I love you, Dolph, but you have to say no sometimes.  This movie's plot is ridiculous and excises as much of the previous film as was humanely possible.  This is a fairly-new release, but I'm not holding back on the plot.  If you want to avoid SPOILERS, just skip this one.  Get it?  Got it?  Good.  To find out why this film doesn't even have a title card, read on...

A wizard lady fights some bandits off in the Woods and makes it to...Vancouver.  On the plus side, they're actually setting it in Vancouver and not calling it Chicago or New York.

This is Dolph.  He teaches Self-Defense, but is sad about his friends dying in the Gulf War 10 years ago.  He's the hero and the Narrator.  Even he doesn't seem to be taking this shit seriously.

The wizard lady helps our hero out from the hooded thugs and takes him through a cheap, CG portal to the Dungeon Siege world.  They excised that part of the title, but kept the land.

In place of Statham, we have Boll-alumni Lochlyn Munro as King Raven.  Quoth the him: Nevermore.

He rules the surviving people of the land- a plague was unleashed- from his $200 fort.  This is why some films use $60 million budgets FYI.

Dolph and a lady doctor are sent to kill an Evil Witch (damn you, Alone in the Dark II!)...but he finds her camp to be friendly.  Confused?  Well, here's the deal.

She explains that King Raven is actually evil and sends Dolph out to stop him.  She doesn't actually present any evidence- he just believes her.  Oh yeah, this Dragon shows up.  One point for Boll...out of 10,000,000,001.

In The End, Dolph battles Raven in an amazingly one-sided brawl...in his house.  Holy out-matched villain, Batman!  He then mourns his exit from the D.S. land...even though they never show the Portal in his house close!

Our sequel...sequel bait ending involves a random necklace given to him glowing.  That or he could just go downstairs!  The End.

You can keep both Worlds, Boll!  This movie is just awful for a number of reasons.  The biggest: it's dull and listless.  The action scenes spice things up, but everything is as bland as room temperature water.  The characters are not that interesting.  Dolph is the most interesting, but his sarcastic tone comes off more like he's an asshole.  I guess because everyone else is an asshole to him, that makes it okay.  No.  No, it doesn't.  As I said, I love Dolph, but he is not right for a sarcastic character.  Other than him, all of the actors appear to mostly be 'window-dressing.'  Even the suddenly-evil villain fails to ham it up like the role requires, nor is he scary enough to be taken seriously.  Not scary and not funny- pointless.  I wish that this movie had some ridiculous shit to talk about...but it doesn't.  Even a plot twist like Dolph Lundgren being Statham's time-lost son- who was in turn the son of Burt Reynolds (!!!)- is just kind of there.  Can a movie about a time-traveling soldier fighting an evil king alongside a witch while a dragon lurks in the forest be dull.  Apparently it can be, yes.  Take us away, lame green-screen effect...

Next up, a '70s film with a great title.  Can the cheap-ass DVD transfer ruin the potential?  Stay tuned...

Boll-shit: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

I managed to put off Uwe Boll films for so long. I know of his reputation and have no problem joining the firing squad against him. Quite frankly, simply seeing five minutes of Bloodrayne was enough for me. Even casting Dave Foley in Postal (Future note: If only I had listened) could not fool me. So, why the hell did I break my vow for...

This just sounds bad right off of the bat, doesn't it? You just want to toss in the pile of stupid fantasy movies like Hawk the Slayer and Barbarian Queen 2. You're not too far off.

*

The movie quickly introduces our to our protagonist: Farmer. He's a...well, farmer. I fear for the depth of this movie's screenplay immediately. His best friend and fellow farmer is Hellboy...I mean, Ron Perlman. His wife is Claire Forlani, evidently taking time away from pretending to be in love with Gary Sinise. She also has a kid, who is a bit too old to have really come out of her, to be honest. Let's not even get into her being attracted to a poor, Jason Statham.

There is trouble in the state of Denmark...or rather, whatever this fake country is called. The King (played by the Bandit) has no male heir save for his doofus nephew (Shaggy). His best friend and Arch-Mage (Maximilian Arturo) has a daughter (Joan D'Arc) who wants to fight, but he won't let her. Oh and a fellow wizard plans to take over the kingdom. Let's focus on the girl's drama though, movie.

Not too long after this, a group of Orcs...I mean, Krugs attack Farmer's village. He has to fight off a group of them at his farm before he can help anyone else. Naturally, he is a master with the sword and knows kung-fu. Reality is not important, huh? He kills a bunch of them, but seemingly fails to save his wife and son. They mix in footage of the evil wizard controlling some Krugs while in what appears to be The Phantom Zone. He even ends up being the one who does the deed on Farmer's kid.

Alot of boring and random crap happens. Farmer survives being hung to death and kills a Krug controlled by the wizard for 100th time. The King tries to raise his army for battle, but is poisoned by his nephew. Random black guard leads the forces alongside the King, despite his earlier wounding. Plus, Farmer, Hellboy and random other guy run into Peter Pan in the forest. Oh wait, it's actually Kristanna Lokken as an Elf who does nothing but swing around in the trees. Plus, the Elves number about five and are all women. How does that work?

Sparing you a lot of stuff, the King dies after a big battle in the woods and explains that his long-lost heir is actually Farmer. Yeah, they look so much alike. The Magus' daughter joins the army for the final battle, while Hellboy is killed in the prison for trying to save Farmer's wife. His sacrifice was noble...and completely useless. Good job. The Magus dies as well in a crappy CG-swordfight with Liotta and gives all his power to his daughter, despite her screwing his enemy for months (don't ask). Farmer swings across a giant freaking ravine and sneaks in to battle the wizard. After a long, stupid battle, the enemy falls...when Farmer's wife stabs him. My hero!

This movie is pretty damn bad. It is so utterly generic in many ways and just full of bad acting. Matthew Lillard proves that his best acting job thus far has been in Thirt13n Ghosts.  Even next to Liotta's hammy performance, he looks like a freaking hack!  Wow- just wow.  The good actors (Davies, Reynolds) do not do much other than deliver bad dialogue with a straight face.  All things considered, it makes them look like Olivier!  From what I am told, this is still better than Postal though.  I like to set the bar a little higher, thank you.

Up next is a nearly-forgotten movie that should have stayed that way.  I never learn- ever.  Stay tuned...