Paul W.S. Anderson. Uwe Boll. Paul W.S. Anderson. Uwe Boll. Paul W.S. Anderson. Uwe Boll.
In case you weren't around one year ago when I promised to spend all of 2008 without speaking their names (or the names of their films) in this blogorium, that's who I occasionally refer to. The almost bottom of the barrel in cinema* in terms of output and competence.
Uwe Boll makes almost exclusively video game adaptations, but he does them so badly that at this point they're games almost no one has heard of. He made House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Postal, and the subject of our first review of 2009: In the Name of the King.
Actually, that should be In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, because the first half isn't stupid enough by itself. I kinda-sorta reviewed it in when the dvd came out last spring / summer, but since I couldn't identify it by name, many of you probably just shrugged and moved on. Bad call.
Until ITKOTKADST, I had a longstanding embargo on Dr. Boll. I refused to see any of his movies, no matter how many big name actors he tricked into appearing in his films (*coughBenKingsleycough*). But somehow the bizarre list of actors in Dungeon Siege (jesus, there's no way to shorthand the title that isn't a mouthful) got me curious. It was a congregation of too many "really?" and "they're still acting?" that I broke my embargo.
Allow me to share the people involved in this "movie"
Jason Statham
Ron Perlman
Ray Liotta
(it drops off pretty sharply from here)
Matthew Lilliard
John Rhys-Davies
Leelee Sobieski
Claire Forlani
Kristanna Lokken
a dude I thought was Michael Jai White but is instead named Brian J. White
and
Burt Reynolds
With a universally reviled "director" at the helm and the highest budget he's ever seen (courtesy of the German government), how could this not be a disaster of epic proportions?
And boy howdy is it. I guess he blew his budget on the endless helicopter shots that are all over Dungeon Siege, because there's no way that cast commanded sixty million dollars. Statham and Perlman are the biggest stars and I don't think they command twenty five million apiece, probably not even ten. The rest of the cast, well come on. Burt Reynolds is doing commercials for some X-Box game now. The rest of those jokers were probably happy to have work or just say yes to everything (*coughJohnRhysDaviescough*).
He certainly didn't spend it on makeup effects, since the masks on this Lord of the Rings ripoff look cheaper than the masks in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and that's saying something. Everyone is "acting" at level ten for the whole movie, except the aformentioned Statham and Perlman who foolishly try to take the material seriously. It's not their fault, but you can really only elevate horse shit to dried horse shit.
The "plot" involves a character named Farmer (Statham) who is a farmer to go to battle against an evil wizard (Liotta) that's trying to steal the kingdom of whatever from Burt Reynolds. Helping the wizard is the King's idiot son (Lilliard) and a bunch of other characters none of you care about. I sure didn't, because every five minutes or so Boll hops in a helicopter and films the German countryside in slow motion. Sometimes there are even actors involved.
The dialogue is howlingly bad, especially when spoken by Lilliard, Liotta, or a clearly bored Reynolds. I'd rather not get into Sobieski, Forlani, or Loken because they mostly stare into the distance or utter things woodenly. I swear that's Michael Jai White. Seriously. There's no way that's Brian White or whatever his name is**.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is the kind of movie you'd expect to see on the Sci-Fi Channel, but somehow made it to theatres. Apparently, it topped out at around seven million dollars in US gross, which to me is still astounding. That means up to one million Americans saw this, and I hope they were all drunk.
The funny thing is that I'm recommending this to you. It's bad, but you're going to have much more fun consuming alcohol and watching this joke of a movie than you would being baffled at how The Happening exists. You won't enjoy Dungeon Siege for the reasons Uwe Boll intended, but you might find yourself laughing all the way through the credits.
However, I'm not going to watch another one of his movies. This level of ineptitude is not something I'm willing to repeat. One was enough, and this appears to be the high water mark in his filmography.
---
Tomorrow I'm going to take on Paul "What Script" Anderson's ill-conceived remake of Death Race 2000, titled Death Race also starring Jason Statham (sigh). Stay tuned: we're off to a great start this year!
* the actual bottom of the barrel, as I understand, are the guys who made Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, Date Movie, and Meet the Spartans. I couldn't say from experience, never having endured one of their "movies", but that's the consensus from those in the know.
** they aren't even related!
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