`King' deposed despite a strong cast.

Byline: Richard Duckett

COLUMN: Movie Review

"In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" is so bad it's (almost) good.

Few cinematic spectacles make such a spectacle of themselves as this movie. The film could be destined to be one of the guilty pleasures of 2008 -imagine Burt Reynolds as a gravelly voiced king, for example, or Ray Liotta flying through air. If it is, however, be warned. By order of the king: 20 lashes.

The "off with his head" decree goes to director Uwe Boll, who is not the sort of man who should be allowed into a China shop. Subtlety obviously isn't his strong point (an upcoming project is "Zombie Massacre"). And yet to be fair, he does exude a certain zeal about things as he thumps us repeatedly over the head with his hammer.

Based on a video game, "In the Name of the King" takes us to a sort of mystical, medieval world where the forces of goodness and virtue are being seriously challenged by evil. But it's not exactly a land and time that has been forgotten. Boll obviously hasn't forgotten the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and neither has screenplay writer Doug Taylor. The film could have passed as a dead ringer for one of the "Ring" movies if its budget hadn't been so obviously lower. Still, that's no excuse for many of the shoddy special effects. And as for the script ...

"In the Name of the King" is the sort of story J.R.R. Tolkien would have written if he had majored in film studies at Ozarks University as opposed to English language at Oxford University.

The film's hero is Farmer (played by Jason Statham) a no-nonsense kind of guy who calls himself "Farmer" because that's what he is - a farmer. (Got it?) In fact, he looks like a sort of Irish turnip and pig farmer, but one who also carries and uses a boomerang (crikey, begorrah).

It doesn't quite seem fair that he has a sexy wife (Claire Forlani), although a smart-aleck son is obviously something that can befall any class or caste.

Still, life seems good when all of a sudden it's a case of "Enter the Krugs." "Enter the what?" you might ask, and to be honest, hours after seeing the film, this reviewer is still at a loss to explain who they are.

They look horrible and slimy, and make constant pig-sounding noises. We'll ignore any obvious election-season jokes, and just observe that Boll should have done better with the appearance and general disposition of the Krugs.

In any event, it turns out that they are under the control of a magus gone bad named Gallian (played by Liotta, whose career as an actor has apparently taken a turn for the worse).

He wants nothing more than to take over the kingdom presided over by the good King Konreid (good old Burt Reynolds). Also eyeing the crown is the king's drunken young nephew, Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard).

Farmer could basically care less about any of these machinations, but tragedy strikes, courtesy of the marauding Krugs, and his cute wife is taken a prisoner. So Farmer will put the turnips to one side and the piglets in their pen and take a stand side by side with the king.

Other characters and actors involved with the tall tale include a good magus, Merick (John Rhys-Davies), his attractive daughter (Leelee Sobieski), and Farmer's oafish pal Norick (Ron Perlman).

The cast, actually, isn't at all bad, at least on paper. Performances, however, are decidedly mixed. Statham's mistake is that he appears to be taking it all seriously. It's a cold, humorless effort, whereas Lillard has some fun as the nasty nephew. Without giving too much away, a death bed scene longer than the one in "The King and I" is unintentionally hilarious, while Rhys-Davies gives the impression that he once acted in Shakespeare plays, even though he long abandoned that pursuit for quick pay-offs and visit to banks. Coming out the worst, and yet memorably so, is Liotta. As he points emphatically one isn't sure if he his conjuring evil Magus magic or making accusing gestures to his agent.

A strange affliction befalling the male actors playing characters in this kingdom is a throat disease that has them all talking in croaky, hard to understand voices.

Fortunately, they seldom have anything significant to say. And if you like schoolboy action with epic battles, gorges to cross and magical forests, "In the Name of the King" has that sort of thing aplenty. The battles, alas, are also a bit disappointing with their so-obvious computer generated imagery. In contrast, some of the location exteriors (the film was shot in British Columbia) are quite breathtaking to look at.

The soundtrack, meanwhile, sounds crushingly overwrought at the beginning, but by the end - if you haven't long since tuned it out - there is a certain spirit to the music you can't help but rather like.

It could just be that "In the Name of the King" has finally summoned out the school kid in us for some harmless fun (for all the battles, there is no sickening gore in the move, for example).

But at just over two hours, even a 12-year-old awestruck schoolboy is going tire of nonsense writ large and laughable.

`In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale'

**

A Freestyle Releasing release

Rating: PG-13 for intense battle sequences

Running time: 2 hours, 4 minutes

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: From left, Jason Statham, Ron Perlman and Will Sanderson star in "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale."