Bloodtype Online

     After reading a lot about Boll and his films I, personally, had still yet to view any of them. I am not one to make a judgement until I experience what I'm critiquing for myself. Therefore, although I was sure all the negativity surrounding Boll and his creations were probably warranted, I refused to write the director off until I observed his work for myself. I even listened to co-creator of Bloodtypes interview with Boll and found him to be interesting. Soon, I was called upon by the site to review Boll's latest film to arrive on DVD, "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." Now I can say I have seen a Uwe Boll film for myself. The following paragraphs represent my reaction.

     This one of Boll's efforts continues his ability to garner a solid ensemble cast. Not knowing a whole lot about this movie, I was shocked to see who I found a part of it. The film stars one of today's top action stars Jason Statham. I knew Jason was in it so that obvioulsy wasn't a surprise. Leelee Sobieski is part of the supporting cast. This wasn't the biggest of surprises, either. Not only is Leelee not a big star but she hasn't been in anything in a while. Then all of a sudden Ron Perlman ("Hellboy"/"Blade 2") shows up. His appearance is soon followed by Claire Forlani ("Mission Impossible"), Matthew Lillard ("Scream"), John Rhys-Davies ("Indiana Jones"/"Lord of the Rings") and then comes Burt Reynolds. Burt fucking Reynolds! This may not be a huge deal to a lot of readers out there but I am a big Burt fan and the fact that he turned up in this with a pretty big role was downright shocking. Then, to further my amazement, literally one of my favorite actors of all time shows up. Ray Liotta. All I can say is why Ray why? Hey the country's in a recession and I guess Ray needed a quick check. So the bottom line is that Uwe has a hell of a cast to work with.

     The story of the film takes place in a "fantasy land" (for lack of a better term). It is basically Uwe Boll's attempt at a fantasy epic and loosely based off of the popular video game series "Dungeon Siege". Farmer (yes that's his first name) is portrayed by Jason Statham and is the central character. The plot is the run of the mill fantasy story. When Farmer's wife (Forlani) and son head off to sell produce the region is attacked by a race of creatures called "Krugs". Farmer's son is slaughtered with his in-laws and his wife disappears. Not knowing if she's dead or not, Farmer, his brother-in-law Bastian (Will Sanderson) and friend Norick (Perlman) head off to find out. In the meantime, the evil Krug army is being controlled by mage Gallian (Liotta). He is involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the king (Reynolds) to ultimately take control of the kingdom. I could explain some more but why bother?

     The film was entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The best I heard it described was a kid who said it was an unintentional spoof of "Lord of the Rings". That's exactly what I was thinking when watching this. The Krug creatures were dressed in monkey-like suits that were one bar higher than the troll costumes from "Troll 2". That is not a compliment. The story was formulaic from what was explained and the remainder of what should have been story developement was unexplained. The film just kind of starts in the middle of all kinds of events amidst all kinds of characters and there is no developement. If this plot were cheese it would definately be swiss because of all of its holes. The acting is also a whole other ballgame. I don't know who was hamming it up on purpose, who just didn't care, or who was actually trying but it seemed as all the actors knew what kind of flop they were apart of. Matthew Lillard was his over the top self that he popularized in his perfomance at the end of "Scream". Burt Reynolds is hilarious as King Konreid. You wouldn't believe his comments about seaweed. Goofy as hell. Don't even get me started on Liotta. They have him dressed up like he's Liberace and he's truly one of the actors who I believe was purposely hamming it up.

     In conclusion, I have finally discovered what all the negative hype surrounding Uwe Boll is all about. As I stated in this review, this film was so awful that it was entertaining. The thing is the worst part about the feature was the direction. The movie is chock full of out of focus shots, duplicate scenes, poor editing, overall just bad camera work and a bunch of other noticeable technical nuances. I can only recommend this to those who get a kick out of bad movies. Whether it's to make fun of them while you watch or just laugh at how bad they are. Let me also add that the biggest joke about this film is its running time. This fucker's like over 2 1/2 hours long! I seriously thought the end battle sequence was never going to end. If you plan on giving this a shot; call some buddies over, get a bag of weed, grab a case of beer and prepare yourself to do some cutting up.

Rating - *1/2

Jared Bajoras

*Note. The additional 1/2 star is for the unintentional comedy.