Recently I watched Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King on Netflix. I know many would immediately dismiss this film as a terrible Uwe Boll film but in a fit of interest I decided to watch it. First off the film is not great but I reject the notion that its as bad as people make it out to be.
As I was watching the film I was wondering if it was intentionally funny because this film is very campy. Truth be told, I love camp as I consider films like Time Cop and Soldier to be really fun movies. How could the film not be knowingly campy casting Burt Reynolds as the King? When I first saw him on the screen I laughed, it just seemed such an odd choice.
That said, this movie did do a few things right. At times some of the shots in this film look quite good. Seriously, some of the shots are really pretty. The final battle between the protagonist and Ray Liotta was fun. At one point the protagonist and his compatriots are in the forest and meet up with some women that travel entirely by swinging on vines. Its really comical as the vine travel is so entirely unrealistic they might have well just not removed the stunt cranes they were hanging on from the shot.
Jason Statham takes the lead role in this film and provides one of the better performances. I only had a few problems with his character and it really just involved some poor dialog choices and that his name was "Farmer." The reason for that is that you start as a farmer in the original Dungeon Siege game. The film attempts to explain this by stating that Jason Statham calls himself Farmer because that's who he wanted to be.
So how does this film stack up to the Dungeon Siege game? Since I loved the original game so much, it was interesting to watch the movie and stack it up to the game. The movie is loosely related to the video game in a few ways. First Jason Statham starts out as a farmer, like in the game. Second off his village is ransacked by The Krug right away which again, fits with the game. But as the movie gains some steam it starts going off in a different direction. The Krug really only serve to provide the protagonists things to kill but you know, that's really what they were in the game too. In the end I would say for what little story the original Dungeon Siege game did have, the movie keeps tabs on it reasonably well.
If you wore out your VHS Tapes of Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme then you should give this movie a shot. It isn't perfect but it has its moments and some of them are actually pretty fun. Oh right, its available to watch entirely on YouTube and is linked above, for the Kingdom of Ebb!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Name_of_the_King:_A_Dungeon_Siege_Tale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_%281998_American_film%29
As I was watching the film I was wondering if it was intentionally funny because this film is very campy. Truth be told, I love camp as I consider films like Time Cop and Soldier to be really fun movies. How could the film not be knowingly campy casting Burt Reynolds as the King? When I first saw him on the screen I laughed, it just seemed such an odd choice.
That said, this movie did do a few things right. At times some of the shots in this film look quite good. Seriously, some of the shots are really pretty. The final battle between the protagonist and Ray Liotta was fun. At one point the protagonist and his compatriots are in the forest and meet up with some women that travel entirely by swinging on vines. Its really comical as the vine travel is so entirely unrealistic they might have well just not removed the stunt cranes they were hanging on from the shot.
Jason Statham takes the lead role in this film and provides one of the better performances. I only had a few problems with his character and it really just involved some poor dialog choices and that his name was "Farmer." The reason for that is that you start as a farmer in the original Dungeon Siege game. The film attempts to explain this by stating that Jason Statham calls himself Farmer because that's who he wanted to be.
So how does this film stack up to the Dungeon Siege game? Since I loved the original game so much, it was interesting to watch the movie and stack it up to the game. The movie is loosely related to the video game in a few ways. First Jason Statham starts out as a farmer, like in the game. Second off his village is ransacked by The Krug right away which again, fits with the game. But as the movie gains some steam it starts going off in a different direction. The Krug really only serve to provide the protagonists things to kill but you know, that's really what they were in the game too. In the end I would say for what little story the original Dungeon Siege game did have, the movie keeps tabs on it reasonably well.
If you wore out your VHS Tapes of Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme then you should give this movie a shot. It isn't perfect but it has its moments and some of them are actually pretty fun. Oh right, its available to watch entirely on YouTube and is linked above, for the Kingdom of Ebb!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Name_of_the_King:_A_Dungeon_Siege_Tale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_%281998_American_film%29
