In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is a 2006 fantasy film directed by Uwe Boll, inspired by the Dungeon Siege video game series. It was produced by Brightlight Pictures and distributed by Freestyle Releasing and Vivendi Entertainment in the United States and Canada. 20th Century Fox took distribution overseas. It premiered at the American Film Market on November 3, 2006. It was released in Germany on November 29, 2007 and was released in the United States on January 11, 2008.
Set in the kingdom of Ehb, the story follows a man called Farmer (Jason Statham), an orphan who was adopted by the village. When Farmer's wife, Solana (Claire Forlani), and his son leave to sell vegetables at the town of Stonebridge, his farm is attacked by creatures called Krug. With the help of his friend and mentor, Norrick (Ron Perlman), he fights off the Krug and travels to Stonebridge. However, the Krug kill his son and capture his wife. Accompanied by Norrick and Bastian (Will Sanderson), his brother-in-law, Farmer intends to find and rescue his wife.
The Krug are being controlled by the wizard Gallian (Ray Liotta) who is amassing an army to overthrow King Konreid (Burt Reynolds), with the assistance of the King's nephew, Fallow (Matthew Lillard).
This film marks the one and very likely only time Hong Kong veteran action choreographer Ching Siu-tung would work on a video game movie, and his Wire Fu effects are notably evident in the forest battle scenes and the final fight.
Two DTV sequels have been released: In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds and In the Name of the King 3: Last Mission, with substantially smaller budgets and sequences set in modern day Vancouver and Sofia, respectively.
In The Name of The King provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: During the first battle with the Krug, the Krug roll out catapults and launch... themselves set on fire.
- Actor Allusion: Muriella's actress Leelee Sobieski is better known for playing a more famous Lady of War.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Krug, though it's revealed that they're just puppets for Gallian.
- Armor Is Useless: Our hero never wears any armor. The King is struck by an arrow that punches right through his armor.
- Badass Creed: King Konreid has one.Wisdom is our hammer.Prudence will be our nail.When men build lives from honest toil-Courage never fails.
- Big Bad: Gallian.
- Complexity Addiction: For all the complicated plans that Fallow comes up with to get rid of Konreid, it turns out that there really was never any reason (other than the fact that it wouldn't have done his public image much good) why he couldn't have just gone the full-on Klingon Promotion route and killed Konreid in open view of everyone, then pardoned himself of any resulting criminal charges upon becoming the new king.
- Cool Old Guy: Norrick and King Konreid.
- Court Mage: Merick.
- The Dragon: Fallow thinks he is the one in charge, until Gallian puts him in his place.
- Dungeon Bypass: A meta example. In the game, the Broken Bridge forces the player through a haunted tomb and a Dwarven mine. Here, it's an opportunity to go ziplining. Admittedly, this would have added a lot to the films runtime for no reason and is, in its own context, largely an excuse to kill skeletons for their loot and XP.
- Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": Farmer. Discussed at the beginning, when Farmer's son asks him why he prefers to be called this way. Farmer expresses his belief that a person's job should be reflected in his name.
- Evil Nephew: Fallow, who's plotting against his uncle King Konreid.
- Evil Sorcerer: Gallian.
- Faux Action Girl: Muriella is established to be an expert swordswoman. In the third act, she puts on armor and grabs a sword to go help her king fight... and does absolutely nothing for the rest of the film except providing a distraction at the end.
- Flying Weapon: Gallian and Merick have a fight involving swords that they levitate using their magic.
- The Good King: Konreid is pretty benevolent and appears to know a lot about his land and the lives of his people. He also doesn't shy away from leading his soldiers into battle.
- Hidden Backup Prince: Farmer has lived as a... farmer for most of his life, when he's really the King's son.
- Improbable Weapon User: Farmer is just a farmer with a machete and a boomerang, yet he wields the boomerang like Link and his magic boomerang, capable of hitting multiple targets with a single throw and still having it come right back.
- In Name Only: Just try connecting this film to the video game franchise it's supposedly based on. At least there’s Krug.
- Keystone Army: The Krug immediately stop fighting when Farmer kills Gallian.
- The Kingslayer: During a battle against the Krug, Fallow mortally injures his uncle King Konreid by shooting him with an arrow
- Klingon Promotion: Fallow nearly achieves this by fatally wounding Konreid with an arrow, which would have caused him to become the new king if not for the real heir (Farmer) having been found by this point.
- Large Ham: Gallian and his Evil Laugh.
- Left Hanging: The ending leaves the fates of about three different groups of characters essentially unresolved. It just cuts suddenly to Uwe Boll's name.
- Loophole Abuse:
- According to Merick, a magus must always serve a king in order to retain his power. Gallian serves no one yet is extremely powerful. When asked, Gallian reveals that he had the Krug accept him as their king and now serves himself. It's implied that this wouldn't work for everyone, only someone already insane enough to believe that.
- After a couple of other plans to dispose of the king fail, Fallow decides to just kill him in open view on the battlefield. Being the king's closest known relative, Fallow will become the new king, after which he can just pardon himself of the resulting treason and murder charges. It's indicated that this would have worked, too, if not for Farmer having been discovered to be the king's son, causing him to become the new king instead of Fallow.
- The Mentor: Norrick.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Norrick, Farmer's mentor, gets killed in the second act.
- Missing Mom: Farmer's mother was killed in a massacre, and he became lost. Peasants took him in afterward.
- Our Orcs Are Different: The Krug are basically stand-ins for stereotypical orcs, being mindless humanoid monsters for the heroes to slaughter.
- Plot Hole: It seems Uwe Boll deleted plot relevant scenes which results in a lot of confusion to anyone trying to make sense of the story.
- Really Royalty Reveal: Farmer is revealed to be King Konreid's long-lost son.
- Smug Snake: Fallow, who sneers plenty, but is pretty much an idiot.
- Thematic Series: None of the sequels of the show follow the story or characters of the original. They're all just about fantasy worlds in a dispute over a kingship.
- There Is Another: Muriella has the powers of a magus, but Merick doesn't see that until the end.
- We Have Reserves: This is the only way the Krug know how to fight.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: People that don't watch the deleted scenes or the Extended Director's Cut may wonder what happened to Fallow after Farmer is outed as a prince in the middle of his duel with Tarish. For some reason Boll took out the scene where Tarish immediately slits Fallow's throat after Farmer is outed.
- You Have Failed Me: Fallow kills a general for asking a few perfectly normal questions and asks the other soldiers if anyone else wishes to commit treason.
