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