Movie Review: In the Name of the King

[hrj]

Oh. My. God. No, seriously. Oh. My. God. This was awful. This was awful with an awfulness that teetered on the edge of delicious awfulness but kept wavering back to the side of plain old awful awfulness.

Now, you have to understand that scotica and I have this "thing" about seeing bad fantasy/medieval (or medieval/fantasy) movies together. We have an entire system of scoring for the various types and magnitudes of badness that fantasy/medieval movies can achieve. So it isn't as if I came out of this movie feeling like I'd been unexpectedly cheated out of my money. (The Seeker -- now there was a movie where I felt cheated by the unexpected awfulness.) So what is the specific nature and flavor of awfulness that ITNOTK achieves?

To start with, this is your basic D&D adventure hodgepodge (it even says so in the subtitle, "A Dungeon Siege Tale" -- and there is, in fact, something resembling a siege of a dungeon, if you squint hard enough). Take the entire checklist of standard medieval-fantasy adventure tropes, toss in a good handful of name movie actors who must have been really hard up for the rent money this month. Rip off the imagery and scene-blocking from some existing fantasy movies and tv shows. Add a lot of truly laughable dialogue. And then, for each major character, flip a coin to determine whether they are to underact or overact. A brief survey of the high points of the standard fantasy checklist will give a sense of the result:

* Long-lost heir to the kingdom raised in obscurity as ... wait for it ... a turnip farmer. (No, seriously, turnips. Big fat juicy turnips. He seems quite successful at the whole turnip-farming thing. A real knack.)
* Significant portions of the hero's family slaughtered meaninglessly by invading ... invaders. Thus motivating all his subsequent actions.
* Slimy king's nephew, plotting.
* Wise and crafty king's wizard, missing the obvious.
* Nasty evil wizard, wearing black leather trenchcoat.
* Spunky female warrior, rebelling against MCP expectations of passivity.
* Ninja brigade jumping from trees.
* Generic war-porn faceless sub-human enemy hordes (ripped off from LoTR orcs).
* Tribe of woo-woo man-hating mystic amazon forest dwellers (ripped off from Xena, Warrior Princess).
* Noble and loyal Ethnic General of the king's armies.
* All standard iconic fantasy-medieval hairstyles: young peasant warrior with Fabio hair, mystic amazon with teensy warrior-braids, muscular hero with shaved head, etc. etc.
* Obligatory pyrotechnics in the battle scenes.
* Obligatory gymnastics-makes-you-a-better-swordsman moves.
* Obligatory amazingly good swordfighting skills from untrained turnip farmer. (Oh, and he's very good with a boomerang too, although the boomerang seems to be a close cousin of Xena's chakram in its behavioral properties.)
* Amazing conservation of momentum in rope-swinging stunts.
* Vast castles and vast armies that operate without any sign of servants or support staff.
* Obligatory cage-wagons carrying off battle-captives (at significant effort and trouble for the invading invaders) for unspecified Fate Worse Than Death.
* Unexpected "I am no man"-ripoff fatal-blow-dealing to evil wizard.

Quote of the movie (from scotica): "Armed warriors are no match for Cirque du Soleil!"

If you're really hard up for something to show at your Bad Medieval Movie night, see if you can get this from Netflix. But if you never get around to it, don't worry too much.

Comments

[scotica.livejournal.com]

This review is so much more entertaining than the movie :-)

off topic

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

did you change your device?

Re: off topic

[scotica.livejournal.com]

Nope, nothing's changed.

Re: off topic

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

That device you're displaying isn't familiar to me...pretty, but not yours.

Re: off topic

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I think maybe you're getting different people confused with each other.

Re: off topic

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

oops! I mixed up the LJ names, sorry.

Re: off topic

[scotica.livejournal.com]

Nae problem -- and I'm always pleased when people think it's pretty :-)

[cryptocosm.livejournal.com]

To call it a "D&D adventure hodgepodge" is to glorify it several orders of magnitude beyond its station: Dungeon Siege ® is apparently a Microsoft product, and the movie is at least one degeneration further removed from its roots.

[madfilkentist]

It was obvious just from the trailer that it was a soulless, mindless LOTR clone.

[momstable.livejournal.com]

Err, hae any of you PLAYED Dungeon Siege? This sounds like they pretty well stuck to the plot (such as it was) of the game. Except you didn't add any Steampunk engines at the end. The game has that. Really.

I have to admit, I liked playing the games. I'm not so sure I'd want to see it on the big screen. But the "plot" of the game was just as hackneyed as you are discribing. With some bits added from DSII.

Just happens I was more interested in the game play.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realized that that was "Dungeon Siege (tm)". Doesn't matter much, except that a great deal of the blame for the various ripoffs transfers to the game designers.

[momstable.livejournal.com]

Oh, absoulutely, the rip-off goes to the game designers. We (Jared and I) noticed and commented on it at the time when we first bought and played the game. It's a 2002 Microsoft PC game (which may or may not shed light on the rip-off propensity). Still fun to play if one wishes to kill monsters rather than bosses or children. Stress relief. It sounds as if the movie makers were trying to be true-ish to the game, at least.

In the intro to the game the character is a red-headed women, who starts as a peasant farmer. Her home is over run by orc wannabes. She gets fighting mad and starts learning how to get REVENGE (tm).

Actual game play allows one to pick gender and appearance. To follow the path of magic or the sword. Pick up NPCs of varying abilities, races, and classes to fill in the gaps in ones own abilities or lack thereof. With all the cliched niches being offered.

And yes, the king's wizard is an ignorant moron.

[beanolc.livejournal.com]

Woman, I love reading your reviews. Thanks!! :)

[sarahbellem.livejournal.com]

Now I don't know if I want to see the movie and risk spoiling your review! ;)

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

You know, maybe you could write one... be sure to use crayon for the final draft.