Two for the price of one

Before I start, I'd like to say that I may be maintaining a pace of about one a week, sometimes it's less than that. I am neither apologetic about this, nor am I remorseful.

This weekend I found time to watch a movie I'd been avoiding for a few weeks now.

I suppose if you know me, you know my attachment to horrible, or at least moderately bad movies. A couple of examples? Wing Commander. Hackers. Between those two, if my punishment in hell was to watch the same two horrid movies for the rest of eternity, this would be closer to purgatory for me.

Don't think I could last? I might surprise you. I've seen Wing Commander more than 30 times. 4 of those times in theaters. When I get home at the end of the day, it's a bit of a chore not to plop down and watch it, even knowing that they threw away all the good bits of the Wing Commander saga and raped what was left... And you already know how much I love that series.

But there is some charm to bad movies. And I don't know what it is, but I almost prefer them to good ones. The good ones are so serious. And as serious a person I may be, I do enjoy the occasional chuckle. That's why I sat down and watched "In the Name of the King: a Dungeon Siege tale".

Ahh.... Uwe Boll. The bringer of such impeccable masterpieces, like; House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and most recently In the Name of the King. (There is also a Postal movie that I really look forward to viewing.)

Boll is revered in the movie and gaming communities as a destroyer of Intellectual Properties, but the truth is, I think I'm a fan of his work.

Granted, I think it's hard to find anything redeemable in House of the Dead, but even his work in Alone in the Dark showed promise. Not everyone is a Wunderkind, but Boll has touched a very specific audience in a negative way. He is constantly criticized as a director who has no respect for the games he is translating, but I really don't think he sees it that way.

His latest production "In the Name of the King" is... interesting. There are things that I want to like about the movie, and things that I can't stand. I feel that one of the improvements Boll could make is to have someone rewrite the dialogue in a more natural manner. While "In the Name of the King" appears to take place in some fantasy land reminiscent of Scotland and England, a lot of the dialogue is uneven, in some places seeming clumsy and unwarranted (to move the plot along), in other places, far too elaborate (though this is usually where you gather the best quotes).

One of the greatest improvements I could attribute to Boll is that he appears to be doing his homework. His cinematography is vastly improved over the span of his American work and the extra effort really shows. While I think his stage crew could probably do more to integrate the stage setup in to the shots Boll sets up, I get the impression that Boll does his exposition shots after he films on stage. His light work has also come along way.

Hands down, the largest detractor from his work appears to be a shared responsibility: Casting and acting.

I'm not sure what they do to cast the parts out, if there are any feelers involved, or if they simply have someone in mind for the part when they write it and go balls out to get that person (which may be the case, as Boll casts many repeat actors), but I wonder if it might help to do screen tests with the actors to ensure that they mesh well. (A perfect example is the absolute lack of chemistry between Christian Slater--Whom I have a great amount of respect for-- and Tara Reid--Who may have finally gotten her plastic surgery fixed). The chemistry mismatch is certainly apparent, even as far as child actors go (Colin Ford as Zeph made me wish the kid was dead--I know, picking on a child actor isn't fair, but this is my opinion God Dammit).

Matthew Lillard and Ray Liotta stand out from the pack here, I'm feeling generous, so here's an entire section. I think if I were an actor, I would prefer not to be typecast, but it seems opposites attract here. Liotta, who may be typecast as the hard-ass italian guy who kills people, is instead the insane wizard guy who kills people by proxy. Lillard, who usually plays a bumbling idiot with redeeming qualities, plays a bumbling, power hungry idiot, with a lack of redeeming qualities. Lillard does stand out as the only person in the cast who attempted to change their usual delivery (in his case spouting lines thru his bottom row of teeth), and in some scenes attempts what might be construed (in a court of law) as an accent change.

No other main character in this movie does so. And the accents appear all over, including the highlight (a russian chambermaid?) whose accent is so unbearably bad, you have to imagine they either asked a non-speaking extra to take a line, or that she's just a really terrible Russian actor.

The rest of the actors in the movie sort of phone in their performances, and I get the impression that a lot of the actors were reading directly off of cue cards, though there are always exceptions: I felt Jason Statham and Ron Perlman actually worked quite well together, and Terrance Kelly made significant improvements over his performance in "Bloodrayne". Brian J White was also a positive mark on this movie, taking a performance past what is written in the script.

Overall, I don't have much bad to say about this movie. While I could go on about it's flaws, you could also dissect a movie like "The Matrix" in the same manner. That's not to say that these two movies are on the same caliber, but I might even venture to say I enjoyed "In the Name of the King" more so then I enjoyed "The Matrix Reloaded". I also see promise in Boll's future. And while I understand that the animosity a lot of the community shows is from bad blood, I call for them to remember movies like "Super Mario Bros", "Double Dragon", "Street Fighter" and "Mortal Kombat Annihilation"... even "Doom", and remember that Boll was nowhere to be seen for those movies.

*Disclaimer, I enjoyed all the movies mentioned at the end with the exception of "Mortal Kombat Annihilation".