In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
The new Jason Statham endurance contest "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" is about a medieval farmer named Farmer. After warrior goblins kill his son and steal his wife, he vengefully ventures after her. This is the sort of movie where men stand blankly over dead loved ones, then start digging. Masculine stoicism or emotional botox? You decide. Statham walks like a professional. He bores like a professional, too. Lately, he's been drawn to parts that give him a good physical workout but leave his smoky charisma to sit home on the couch and collect unemployment. He's better here than he was talking up a storm in Guy Ritchie's "Revolver." But that's not saying much.
Doug Taylor adapted the movie from the Dungeon Siege video games, and presumably the dialogue ("I will take from him what I please - even his daughter's virtue!" "Let's do this") is all his. The director, Uwe Boll, remains committed to long, dull, mediocre action films. His tenacity is a virtue. For this outing, he and his editor try to deliver three climactic battle sequences at once. None of them is all that great (one set at night in the rain is like watching a potter shape hopelessly wet clay). But you can feel the ambition behind them, and it gives you a headache.
"In the Name of the King" has a mix of stars (Burt Reynolds), thespians (John Rhys-Davies), action comedians (Ron Perlman), action hotties (Kristanna Loken), and people who should be in more, better movies (Leelee Sobieski, Claire Forlani, and, best of all, Brian White). A few of these folks are all too happy to act. This does not include Reynolds, whose face now looks tight and lifeless - old and youthful at the same time. It seems to have died before he has.
Reynolds plays the king in whose name most of the action in this movie is committed. His kingdom is under siege, and his chief assailant is his nephew (Matthew Lillard), who is in cahoots with a power-mad magician, played by Ray Liotta. Lillard's and Liotta's scenes together are embarrassing in a "Shakespeare for Dummies" sort of way, but they have the shameless brio missing in the rest of the movie. Lillard is actually entertaining as he disrespects the movie's dinginess.
Liotta is painfully less funny. Some of his scenes require him to gesticulate so that it looks like electricity is flying out of his hands while the camera spins around him. In the rest, he chooses to yell dialogue that doesn't suit him. ("You wish to accelerate things? Fine! We shall accelerate!") I've never seen an actor try so hard to go over the top without getting there. Movies based on video games set in medieval ages might be the dinner theater of cinema. And if Liotta keeps at it, he could be its Joan Crawford.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movies/blog.
Video
