In the Name of the King (2007)

Ok, lets get this out of the way. This movie sucks. It’s a clichéd, run of the mill sword and sorcery story with absolutely no surprises. The actors sleep walk through their performances and the special effects are crap. I cannot believe this movie took $60 million to make and am convinced he blew it all on crack and hookers. But I have to admit, I kind of like this movie. Yes, all of what I’ve just said is absolutely true; it is not a good movie. But let’s be honest, geeks have a lot of love for movies that are a lot worst than this. If this movie was made in the eighties it would be considered a classic.

So at the beginning of the movie we’re introduced to our innocent protagonist with his innocent son and beautiful wife. Of course something horrible is going to happen! His son, who I’m sure had a long life ahead of him, is killed in a Krug invasion, which are controlled by an evil Wizard. And of course his wife is kidnapped which forces him and a few of his friends to make the long journey to rescue his wife and whoop the ass of the man who killed his son. There’s some court stuff, completely comprised of the King and an evil Duke who is fabulous, and there is a totally not surprising twist where the King’s son who everyone thought dead is found to be actually not as dead as most people thought. Hint: It’s the farmer! I would try to spare you the spoilers but really, there are none to spoil. Nothing in this movie is going to surprise you except for how cheap it looks. Seriously, $60 million and they couldn’t even hire a bloody make-up artist!

John Statham is pretty badass as always. He’s always the best part of the action sequences, going all medieval on the Krug’s asses without the benefit of armor of any kind. The only stupid thing about his character is that he uses a freakin’ boomerang, which is probably the stupidest weapon ever invented. Burt Reynolds is… well even Burt Reynolds needs to eat. And Matthew Lillard has a lot of fun being evil.

Of course most of you already know this movie is stupid. The question is not ‘is this movie good?’ It’s ‘is this movie bad enough to be good?’ And I’d have to say yes, but barely. It’s obvious that Uwe Boll really is trying to make a good movie here; going so far to hire the best B actors $60 million can buy. It just barely makes it into the ‘so bad it’s good’ category, helped along by John Statham and Burt Reynolds, who actually have some good scenes here and there. I found this movie to be very entertaining and probably the best movie I’ve reviewed for this blog yet. By no means is this a good movie.. It’s stupid, forgettable shlock that has a certain amount of entertainment value because it’s so stupid.

Let me put it this way, at no point is it so bad that it’s painful. Now stop your bellyaching! You knew what you were getting into when you got a Uwe Boll movie.

I bought this movie for $6.99 as part of a 3-1 deal at IGA.