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Category:    Home > Reviews > Action > Fantasy > In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007/20th Century Fox/Unrated Director's Cut/Blu-ray)

In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (20th Century Fox/Unrated Directors Cut/Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B+     Sound: B+     Extras: C     Film: C-

 

 

After Guy Ritchie’s 2000 film Snatch became a cult sensation and actor Jason Statham suddenly became the target of the studios to become somewhat of a new Bruce Willis a slew of films would star Statham and none of them have been nearly as great.  It all began with the action vehicle The Transporter, which miraculously managed to also have a sequel and other roles in Jet Li’s The One, but Statham still struggles to find a role that adequately establishes the actor back to the same status from Snatch.  In The Name of the King would sadly see the actor in yet another yawn-worthy role.

 

The film involves an evil army that is ruining the peaceful world and destroying everything it encounters and attempting to expand its destruction as it approaches the Castle Ebb and kill the king.  Led by the evil Gallian the evil army meets its match as a family man named Farmer (Statham) is trying to find his kidnapped wife Solana and avenge the death of his son.  It’s not just Statham that causes the film to fail, it wouldn’t really matter who was starring in this film, and to be honest…when was the last medieval film to really succeed?  Of course most of the film tries to be like a watered down version of Lord of the Rings, but ends up a forgettable mess.  

 

Fortunately if you are a fan of this film, you’ll really enjoy its Blu-ray presentation, which is presented in a high definition 1080p transfer framed in scope at 2.35 X 1 and looks darn right spectacular.  Colors are well balanced with strong fidelity and depth throughout that give the film more life than it’s dreadful script.  While the ‘look’ of the film is far from unique, the transfer is breathtaking and it’s only a shame that the story wasn’t strong enough to make you care.  Similarly the DTS-HD 5.1 mix is particularly engaging with lots of nuances to and subtleties as well as other dynamic moments that will give your home theater system some serious thump. 

 

Fans were a bit disappointed that the Blu-ray did not coincide with the DVD release, but now that it has arrived the wait was worthwhile with this performance on Blu-ray.  Also included here is the director’s commentary (Uwe Boll), plus a making of featurette and deleted scenes, which are just as forgettable, despite this being the directors cut of the film it’s just a mistake from the first frame and as a fan of Statham I can only hope he finds his stride again.

 

 

-   Nate Goss


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