‘Guy Movies’ abound on Netflix this summer. James Holcomb reviews one Trilogy that isn’t worth the flix-a-thon.
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In scouring Netflix, one of the biggest surprises you run across is how terrible some of the movies are that some of your favorite actors have been in, strictly for the paycheck. You would also be surprised, or maybe not for the true film geek, how many of your favorite actors have put in duty under the directing or producing skills of schlock-master, Uwe Boll. One particular set of films are the “In the Name of the King” films that starred Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren and Dominic Purcell. This series of films gets progressively worse and the production values match. Each film has its own merits but also deserves every demerit any critics feel the need to smack them around with.
King 1: Jason Statham is a farmer in the Middle Ages whose child is killed by monsters controlled by Ray Liotta. He goes on a revenge quest, with the help of brother-in-arms Ron Pearlman and eventually finds out he’s the son of the king, played with delicious boredom by Burt Reynolds. Ray Liotta is painfully miscast as the villain and John Rhys-Davies plays the same wise old man character he has played for 30+ years. The film is infused with some good production values and somewhat of a coherent plot, but is about a half hour too long and often tries to elevate itself above the B-movie that it is.
King 2: Dolph Lundgren is a former special ops type guy in the modern era who teaches martial arts to underprivileged inner city kids. One day a time portal opens up and he is shoved / falls through, thus ending up in the Middle Ages. He learns that he’s the hero in a prophecy and has to kill the ultimate evil. At first he thinks it’s this lady, but then he finds out he’s wrong – it’s actually a different person. So Lundgren kills him instead and saves the day. There you go. There is the film in a nutshell. Lundgren was in the midst of a fairly expensive divorce which gave him ample reason to jump at the role. Unfortunately, he was injured early in the films production, which took a lot of action out of the action star. The length is just about right and the plot works fine, but the supporting cast can’t match up to Lundgren (yep, they can’t match up to HIS acting skills) and the production is clearly on a small budget. In a lot of ways though, this gets right all the things that the first film got wrong; mainly that it is a B-movie and doesn’t aspire to be more than just fun.
King 3: Dominic Purcell is an assassin from the modern era who is supposed to kidnap some kids in Eastern Europe. He goes through a time warp by accident and learns that there’s a bad guy. Purcell kills him and saves the day. Then he comes home and brings a dragon with him. The production values on this film are terrible, the script is terrible, and the acting is terrible. Everything about this movie is just terrible. Waste your time if you want, but I don’t recommend it on any level.