King Rising - Au nom du Roi

I went into this expecting a bad movie, you could say I was hoping for the best but expecting the worst. I'm a fan of Jason Statham which made me want to see it despite my expectations, plus I work at a theatre and see movies for free which makes me less picky about the movies I watch.

Now I don't typically leave reviews for movies, but after seeing this I felt that I needed to warn people. Up until tonight, I'd never seen a movie directed/produced by this Uwe Boll guy and believe me, as I write this I wish that was still the case. There are no redeeming qualities to this movie and you realize it within the first ten minutes. The cast is brutal, Statham, Liota and Reynolds are all laughable as the main characters. The evil army of 'Krug' reminded me of the dudes in monkey suits in the early Planet of the Apes movies. During action scenes you see the same shot over and over again as if they only had one shot of 'bad guy hit by arrow'. Even the props were bad, Stathams sword looked like something you'd give a six year old on Halloween.

I don't even know if I can accurately put into words how bad this movie is. The best way to describe this pile is to piture you and your friends trying to remake 'lord of the rings' in your backyard, because what you ended up with would be of similar quality.

If you read this review, don't make the same mistake I did. Don't watch it to see if it is as bad as the guy on the IMDb said it was. This movie should only be shown to criminals in jail as further punishment for their crimes.

I saw this in the theater because it looked interesting, but I was disappointed. Terrible acting, terrible plot, terrible editing. It was basically just a rehashed made for TV fantasy that wound up in the movie theater. The plot line was like a super condensed version of lord of the rings without the magic, story, and allegories. The film starts and leaves the viewers wondering and doesn't explain the plot well. The editing is VERY choppy and amateurish. The actors looked bored and unexcited. The krugs were basically ORCs stolen from Lord of the Rings.

I should have waited until it was dollar night. But for a couple of hours, it did fill some time. Overall grade - D

Fortunately, I read a few reviews before watching this. I had already ordered it as part of my mail-in DVD program, so I was stuck with rental, even if I had been thoroughly warned by the folks here. At least I had low expectations now, so I wasn't disappointed when I discovered - yes - it's certainly was not up to what you'd think by looking at the famous names in the cast.

The actor who astounds me the most is Ray Liotta. What has happened to him since "Goodfellas" fame to do something like this? Has his career plummeted this bad, or did he just make a poor choice of roles to play? I can see Burt Reynolds taking anything since he's peak days are long gone, and Leelee Sobieski, because she's never been a star, but Liotta?

Actually, to present both sides, the action scenes, the costumes and the story overall are not boring and not the worst thing I've ever seen. Some of the special-effects were a lot of fun to watch, so it's not all bad.....but the dialog is horrendous. It totally ruins the film and makes the whole movie appear like some B-grade cheapie. It's why I also was disappointed to see Ron Perlman and John Rhys-Davies being part of this.

The worst acting performance in here, by far, was not Liotta but Matthew Lilliard as "Duke Fallow," the son of the king. How Reynolds, who had a fine career, could work opposite this over-the-top guy and keep a straight face, is beyond me. Lilliard overacted so bad, it was embarrassing to watch. I can only hope he was supposed to act that ludicrously, but if that's the case his character is so annoying, it's not fun to view.

Jason Statham: well, I've had it watching his movies. I loved his early work ("Snatch," "The Transporter," etc.) but now he's just a ridiculous action-freak-character, one of these guys who can beat up 50 people by himself in every film, especially this one, as "Farmer." I have to admit, however, I did like him using a boomerang as a weapon. I thought that was pretty cool. I like Claire Forlani, too, who played his wife.

Sadly, the dislikes far outweigh the likes and I can see why so many reviewers here panned this film. With this cast, I guess all of us expected a better film.

This movie isn't as bad as Space Mutiny; I'll give Uwe Boll that. I'd just have to say that its only downfall is that it really doesn't have anything to do with the game besides include similar characters and locations. Beside that, it's your basic mediocre fantasy movie. Not "good," not the absolute worst, but in between somewhere.

The movie also tends to skip around plenty, but the plot was at least easy to follow as well amidst all the battles and dialog. It may be cheesy, and it may be clichéd, but at least it has some decent effects here and there and alright fight moves.

If you have to see this, and you played the Dungeon Siege game, go with a friend, as I did. It should make for a good laugh.

All-in-all, despite it being a pretty average movie, it's Uwe Boll's best so far.

OK, first off, all of the glowing, gushing reviews here were obviously (OBVIOUSLY) planted by someone doing PR for the film (which is shameful in and of itself). There is no way that anyone sane would think this movie was anything more than laughable tripe.

I saw it at a preview, and have to say that I was expecting much more. I didn't realize that Ewe Boll was directing, otherwise I would have skipped it altogether (he should never be allowed near a camera, ever). However, I like nearly every star, enjoy the genre and have been a big fan of the video games for years now, so I figured that this would be worth seeing (nothing will ever compare to LOTR, but it sounded promising).

So yeah, there's not much I can say that hasn't been said here already. Horrible dialog, two-dimensional characters, lousy cinematography, cheesy effects and a plot which is nearly impossible to care about makes this one worth skipping.

Seriously, don't pay to see this. It will only encourage them to give Ewe more projects.