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In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
How did this cast end up in this thing?
Ah, director Uwe Boll. How this man keeps on getting money to make movies is one of the great mysteries of the modern age.
Dungeon Siege is a terrible movie. What's surprising is that for the first time in a Boll movie, I at least found myself laughing at (some of) it instead of just wincing in pain. That's not to say bad movie lovers should go see it, but it might be worth a rental some time. If you're planning on being drunk.
The most astonishing thing about this piece of trash is the cast. True, many of them have seen better days in their careers, but have they really fallen this far? A good chunk of my amusement at this film was seeing a new actor/actress show up and laughing that they were even in this thing. I divided them into four categories while watching- horrible actors, apathetic not-even-trying bad actors, over-top-hammy bad actors, and Jason Statham.
Picture, if you will, Burt Reynolds as the king. Yeah... it was obvious even Burt couldn't picture it, and he doesn't even try. His nephew and heir? Matthew Lillard! How could anyone possibly take a fantasy epic with Burt Reynolds and Matthew Lillard as the only royalty in evidence as anything other than a joke? Lillard plays himself, and his hamminess is only outdone by Ray Liotta as the evil wizard villain. Liotta is so amazingly bad it's hard to believe he ever had a career.
Jason Statham actually appears to be trying, and the sheer amount of physical effort the man puts into the endless fight scenes and stunts is astonishing. Maybe he just doesn't know how to not try. He does a good job, but he certainly can't save this turkey from everything else that's wrong with it.
At over two hours long, the movie seems more like three or four hours long. To give Boll some credit, at least the score was decent. The plot and dialog are laughable- quite literally at some points. Whether or not you'll want to sit through the whole thing to laugh at those parts is kind of questionable.
One more thing. I almost forgot the synchronized ninjas. Amazingly enough, Uwe Boll even manages to make ninjas suck.
Tropa de Elite (2007)
Amazingly good... and horrifying
Tropa de Elite is an amazingly good film; by turns brutally real and horrifyingly hilarious.
It claims to be based on a true story and I find that sadly believable. The main plot revolves around the captain of an elite police unit trying to find a replacement for himself, while dealing with the birth of his child and the horrendous stress of his job, and a mission to clear out a dangerously violent slum.
There are no wholly good people in the movie, and it's frighteningly easy to compare some of what goes on to things happening in the USA (and other places) today. That said, the system of government and policing portrayed comes across as so amazingly inept and awful that it's almost like something straight out of a nightmarish sci-fi dystopia.
If I had to compare it to other movies, it comes off as a cross between Brazil, Office Space, and Full Metal Jacket. Not for the weak of stomach, and you may find yourself greatly disagreeing with the ideals of various groups portrayed (which I believe is part of the point), but I would be enormously surprised if this movie doesn't make you think and give you something to talk about.