Despite the original movie being an expensive flop, In The Name Of The King still spawned a video game movie franchise. Video games have been notoriously tricky to adapt into movies and got off to a bad start with 1993’s Super Mario Bros. The movie swapped the colorful fantasy of the video game for a dingy, Blade Runner-inspired look and remarkably little in the way of humor. The movie was a bomb but has since gained a cult following. While the film versions of Silent Hill and Detective Pikachu have been (mostly) well-received, the vast majority are considered disappointments.
None more so than the works of director Uwe Boll. Boll is a German filmmaker who adapted arcade classic The House Of The Dead into a movie in 2003, which received universally horrid reviews and is still considered one of the worst examples of the subgenre. He followed up with an equally weak film based on Alone In The Dark, starring Christian Slater and Tara Reid. Boll - a gamer himself - went through a run of video game adaptations including all three BloodRayne movies, Far Cry, and Postal.
Despite being able to attract name talent to his projects, Boll’s reputation began to proceed him. His first and only attempt at a blockbuster came in the form of another video game adaptation In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Based on the Dungeon Siege games, the story finds Jason Statham (The Meg) as Farmer, a warrior who has to save his kidnapped family from the forces of an evil wizard, played by a scenery chewing Ray Liotta (Shades Of Blue).
From the production design to the cast, which includes Burt Reynolds, John Rhys-Davies, Claire Forlani, and Matthew Lillard, In The Name Of The King is attempting to envoke The Lord Of The Rings. While it boasts a couple of fun battle scenes it fell prey to the common faults of Boll’s work, including a wonky script, uneven pacing and a sense the actors would rather be elsewhere. The film was shot for an estimated $60 million but would end up grossing less than $14 million worldwide. While it would score another $15 million through DVD sales, this did little to cover its losses.
Numbers like that logically should have canceled any sequel plans, but Boll embarked on one regardless with 2011’s In The Name Of The King: Two Worlds. The follow-up was a straight to DVD project that brought on Dolph Lundgren (Creed 2) as a modern-day soldier transported to the Kingdom of Ehb. Lundgren would bring his trademark charm to it, though the star later admitted to taking the movie to pay for divorce lawyers. Sadly, it’s even less enjoyable than the original and is a drab, cheap fantasy adventure.
The movie must have performed respectably since Boll returned one last time for 2013’s In The Name Of The King 3: The Last Mission. Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) stars as Hazen Kaine, an assassin looking to retire who finds himself teleported to the Middle Ages to fight an evil king. The third movie is probably the worst of the bunch and was one of the last films Uwe Boll directed before his retirement from filmmaking. While they’re not particularly good, it’s still impressive that Boll refused to let the high-profile failure of In The Name Of The King prevent him from making sequels. Despite having a large number of duds on his resume, he still made the occasional good movie like Tunnel Rats and if nothing else, his movies have a distinct personality.
Next: How Detective Pikachu Broke The Video Game Movie Curse
