King Rising 3

20 August 2014. Uwe Boll's third directorial effort on his In the Name of King Franchise and in this case again using a magical time travel theme, he uses to great effect the on site location of Bulgaria that gives a cinematic authenticity and richness to foreign and historical period of the movie. Dominic Purcell attempts to hold up his character throughout the movie and does quite well at the beginning with its raw martial arts combat and assassin demeanor.

The photo cinematography is noteworthy, the brief flash back at the beginning of the movie is well done and its use relatively never done. For a while the awkward time culture clash especially the horse riding scenes are brilliant and comical in their balanced emotive relief and again later with the chicken soap reference. The first two-thirds of the movie, the script holds up well with a few weaknesses, like Purcell's leaving fingerprints because he doesn't use gloves, the sudden and abrupt transition in the use of duck tape, and the less than convincing reaction to a dragon or first single handed combat with an ancient warrior, and rather questionable first kissing scene.

Besides an intrusive shaky use of the camera, eventually the script becomes lazy as well as the direction as Purcell's character fails to offer up a credible leadership performance or professional assassin level planning, and even overlooking the possibility of creating gun powder with superior advanced science knowledge. Instead the script descends into more of the typical butchering combat with not real distinction of Purcell's abilities and becomes a brown and power over sophisticated assassin mentality allowing himself to become ambushed and the scriptwriter appears to desperately resort to the dragon appearance to get our hero and his followers out of an impossible situation and adding the implausible entrance into a castle.

Overall, the movie has a comprehensible thread, starts well, but just runs out of substance by the end. One would be better entertained by Déjà vu (2006), Demolition Man (1993), Black Death (2010), The Book of Eli (2010), The Matrix (1999); The Chronicles of Naria: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005); and Spirited Away (2001).

We are closing 2018 and i finally saw this movie (2014 made) so as you can guess i was not in a hurry to see it. I found it out of a video store sale section and they had this christmas/boxing day sale week so it costed me 2$ canadian. They also buy back any movies for 1$ so at that price i was like "what do i have to loose?" . If it suck, ill return it and it will have cost me 1$.

I saw the first 2 movies and tough the first one was enjoyable, the second one was not too bad but was buried by very crappy practical and cgi effects combine with a cheap feeling.

I can say that this third movie is pretty much the second one in the cheap factor but a bit different. For instance this time the castle actually looks like its made of concrete and not cardboard, so a plus for that, and the cgi dragon look a bit more convincing altough we are far from Game of Thrones level.

But everything else still feel so cheap. The problem is nothing really convince you that you are watching a movie of that era, even if Uwe Boll is probably trying. For instance the "rebel army" is basically what... 30 dudes while the King's Army is under 100. The last movie felt the same way, its not convincing. If you are to have a KING and his army, they got to be at least in the thousands.

Speaking of the King, there is a scene where he is topless at some point and you can spot current days tatoos. This look so out of place and does not help the immersion, especially since there was no need to see him topless at all. You can also spot one of the sister's eyebrows scar wich clearly show she used to sport an eyebrow ring. This is the problem of Uwe Boll. I can understand a lack of budget in many aspect but details like this are just taking you off the movie. Why would an european king of the medieval period (or such) have a chinese symbol on his neck? Cmon now. Kinda like when he cameo in Bloodrayne wich is set in the 1800s and kept his modern day watch. You are the director sir, you should CARE about those things.

The dragon altough a bit more convincing than in the second movie serve no purpose and is basically there to just be there. Movie wouldn't had been much different without it.

As for the rest of the plot, its alright if you can pass the cheap feeling. It kinda look like an episode of Hercules The Legendary Journeys if i can say... exept that show was made in the 90s and was a TV SHOW, so you can excuse the cheapness feel. Characters where also much more entertaining.

Before i wrap up this "review" i got to mention the shaky cam. I know shaky cam can be used to enforce a chaotic feeling in a situation, and i didn't mind it that much watching Rampage, one of the few Boll movies i taugh was decent, but in this movie it just distract the viewer and is either used to hide a lack of talent for filming the battles or simply hiding the low budget. The shaky cam really make you look at the screen blinking saying to yourself "whats going on, can it end already" .

Overall its just a very cheap movie made a director who just lack the talent to make movies. I think this script in better hands with a better budget could had been fairly entertaining. Not a masterpiece but a decent medieval style movie.

But in its current form, its just a throw away "made for TV" movie, or at least it feel like it, the kind of movie you watch on a saturday afternoon when your bored or have a hangover.

I laughed at some of these reviews. I too wonder WHY am I watching a THIRD film of this . . .

In the first film, I wondered why actors like Ray Liota, Statham & others were willing to work with this director.

I figure maybe they were needin' work . . . ?

Then I found out there were 3 of these.

I SHOULD'A looked them up - instead, I assumed they were sequels to the first one. Like, maybe the story got better . . .

But . . . No.

Thankfully, I got the 3 disc DVD set pretty cheap . . .

While 2 & 3 ARE worse than 1, I actually think 3 was a tad better than 2.

At least, there are no modern vehicles parked around the kings castle in 3, but Ulrik the shaman did have a modern yellow, metal bird cage . . .

The first movie had 12 producers.

The second one had 2. This one had 6.

Apparently, if any of these were going to approach being good, they need a minimum of 24.

Aside from really bad directing, I'm a little stunned that any group of 2 or more producers go along with these poorly done movies.

Apparently, these ones are all birds of the same cheezy feather.

Did they keep making the same basic movie with the same general story & title because they were TRYIN' to get it right?

I mean, in the movie industry, if you fail on the second try WORSE - are ya supposed to do the same movie again but with different actors to see of that helps? Make the 'catalyst' a tattoo instead of a dragon? Oh yeh. That'll make it better, and DON'T call it a catalyst this time . . .

Basically, I think these must be a big tax write-off. None of these were ever intended to be even fair, much less good. Doesn't matter. We needed a tax break to cover some yachts, etc.

Also wanted to add - this Purcell guy is so dull. I'm not sure if his character is meant to have no personality.

For some reason, I kept thinking Mickey Rourke shoulda played this part. He would've at least brought somethin' to the character.

ANYWAY - I guess we need really bad films now & then so we recognize & appreciate the really good ones.

Note: This review contains no spoilers - bc - how can you spoil somethin' already rotten?

"You're on the path that you must follow to its end and that end might come sooner then you think." Hazen Kaine (Purcell) is an enforcer for the mob who wants out. After being given one last job he thinks he gets his wish. He is to kidnap the daughters of the royal family and hold them for ransom. When he takes a necklace from one of the kids something strange happens. He is teleported back in time to the dark ages and the only way back is to save the village from a dragon. So...yeah. That is actually what the movie is about. When they tried this plot in the Army Of Darkness it worked. This one did not. To be fair though I didn't like either of the other two so if you did you may like this one. I am not a Uwe Boll fan but after watching and really liking Assault On Wall Street I was hoping for better then this one. But when the main character in your series goes from Jason Statham to Dolph Lundgren to Dominic Purcell there is really only one way the series can go as well. Overall, I have seen worse but it's really time for this series to stop. I give this a C-.

Seriously, Uwe: please stop doing this to us! All of your movies are bad but the "In the Name...." series is the worst of the bunch. At least M. Night Shamilan (sp?) started with something decent before devolving. How can you not improve? Please: stop.