steve d
A few decent ides but no one is good enough to execute them.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
As the first film in the In the Name of the King series was so terrible that it was almost entertaining, I figured a low budget sequel featuring Dolph Lundgren fighting ninjas would be more entertaining, at least as a guilty pleasure.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale was a film that was practically entertaining solely because of how bad it was. It was an early example of what has become a growing genre in 2014: big budget sword and sandal adventures which look cheap, are acted terribly and make the audience wonder precisely how they cost so much. With In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds, as the film has a meagre budget of $4.5 million and was given a direct-to-DVD release, it is clear that the quality will be substantially lower and therefore the potential for it to be a good-bad film is a lot less likely while it is more likely to be a simply bad film. Considering that it is also a Uwe Boll film, the director recognised internationally as being the worst film director of modern day, it is essentially guaranteed to be of lacklustre quality. And on top of it all, it's a star vehicle for Dolph Lundgren. As much as I like the man, his action vehicles are rarely entertaining. So you have a direct-to-DVD sequel to the massive box office bomb that was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, directed by Uwe Boll and starring Dolph Lundgren. That is the precise expectation I went into the film with, so it would be difficult for In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds to be much worse or better than I expected.
There is a lot in In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds to suggest that it is a self-parody. Considering the fact that the concept is ridiculous, that's a start. But the visual effects are of the quality usually found in YouTube action shorts. And the costumes, production design and script all look so cheap that taking the film seriously is a massive challenge. The dialogue in the film is really generic which just makes the narrative more silly, so it takes very little time before it is clear that In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is one of those films which would be at best so bad that it's good. Unfortunately, it is not bad enough in the right areas to gain that status and just ends up bad in terms of pure boredom.
The cinematography on the film is of no assistance. As In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds maintains a budget of a meagre $4.5 million in comparison to In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale's significantly larger budget of $60 million, the film has to take many severe cutbacks. This includes cutting down the scale of the film massively from big battles to small scale fights, and the feel of the scale is notable by the quality of the cinematography. Instead of taking wide perspective shots from slightly distance places during the battle, everything in In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is captured very closely with camerawork which is very basic and sometimes unnecessarily shaky. And all it captures is the same repetitive scenery of the forest and cheap production design as well. There is a lot in In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds that points out how it is of a low budget nature, and while this prevents it from being overblown like Uwe Boll's larger budget films, it still does not constitute enough entertainment.
But the fatal flaw of In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is that it is too narrative driven. The film like all Uwe Boll movies is a cheap video game adaptation with a formulaic plot, and yet due to the low budget nature of the film, the script and story get a lot more focus than well choreographed action scenes. But then plot is weak and the dialogue is corny so it is the last thing people would be expect positive virtues from, and the fact that it didn't deliver on that fails to surprise me. The fact that the film obsesses over plot more than being a guilty pleasure is ridiculous because it means that the action quotient comes up short. I mean the action was already low in quality, but the quantity of it is way too minimal. In short, In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is a low budget sword and sorcery film featuring Dolph Lundgren and should therefore have some level of cheap fun to it since on the surface it sounds like it could have been a good-bad movie. Alas, Uwe Boll proves once again that hoping for the most minimal is still an expectation too high for his limited abilities as a filmmaker.
The only thing I really find warrants any positive reception is the presence of Dolph Lundgren.
Dolph Lundgren is perfect in the lead role for In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds. He is generations away from getting a nomination for a Golden Globe, but he is awesome mainly because of the gimmick in the sense that he is the lead actor. He is so monotonous the whole time that it reaches the low standard set by the film, and so his limited acting abilities make him fit the profile of the role excellently. In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is a film which can only reach the standard of being so bad that it's good, and so the appropriate actor for the role is one who has the gimmick of being a notable B-movie star which would make the film even funnier. Dolph Lundgren has given some good legitimate performances before, but he is also the actor from countless direct to video action films and the man who played He-Man in the live action adaptation of Masters of the Universe. While his performance in In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds requires less muscles, less sword ignoring and less of his natural gimmick, the fact that it is him in the role is what sells it. He isn't as exciting as his co-star from The Expendables Jason Statham who took on the lead in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale due to Dolph Lundgren requiring a lot less and delivering as such under Uwe Boll's direction, but like I said, his genuine presence in the film is genuine enough to bring a very mild sense of guilty pleasure to In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds.
So despite the genial presence of Dolph Lundgren, In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds proves to be a much cheaper and more boring film than In the Name of the King: a Dungeon Siege Tale due to being too short on action, focused on its weak narrative and genuinely dull as an experience.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
What a mess of a sequel. Lundgren lurched his way through this one without actually doing anything useful. If the gap between to two movies would have been explained it might not have been so bad.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Fick skratta gott i mellan åt!! Okej bakissöndags rulle. 1:an har ju något bättre skådisar så den är ju marginellt bättre. Dock lika tunn handling som här Där e J.Statham, R.Liotta & J.Rhys-Davies med.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Did not kike this movie. Not as good as the first movie.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The first film was okay, but lord, I couldn't even get through this film.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Read all reviews
>
