If you didn’t know anything about In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale apart from its cast and premise, then you may have been lulled into a false sense of security that made it sound like a sweeping fantasy worth checking out.
With a picturesque kingdom on the brink of war, an everyman hero rises to legendary status by embarking on a quest to rescue his kidnapped wife and avenge the death of their son at the hands of ruthless warriors, all while a nefarious villain mobilizes a ruthless army to overthrow the incumbent king and steal the throne for himself.
So far, so appealing to fans of the genre, and then when you discover the cast features Jason Statham, John Rhys-Davies, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Ron Perlman, Claire Forlani, Brian White, and even more, then your curiosity could be well and truly piqued. Of course, there is a catch, and his name is Uwe Boll.
Widely disregarded as perhaps the single worst mainstream filmmaker of the modern age, Boll is responsible for some truly reprehensible cinematic crimes, and In the Name of the King is most definitely one of them. It’s got a four percent critical score and 22 percent user rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and imploded at the box office after earning $13 million on a $60 million budget, but yet somehow got two sequels.
We’ve seen that even the worst films in history can be subjected to an undue reappraisal if the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia have thick enough lenses, but mercifully, Redditors are continuing to give In the Name of the King no quarter. It must have been a paycheck gig for all involved, because there’s no way anyone could have justifiably foreseen success when doom was the only possible outcome.