Sometimes, all it takes is the right angle – whether you’re a Nigerian prince trying to give away free money, or a adult magazine photographer who’s looking for the proper approach to snapping a picture of someone’s privates. And then there are bad movies made by bad directors which star bad actors. If you stand even the slightest chance of surviving such an affair, it’s imperative you change your point of view somewhat. Now, I’m not saying you should take back all those things I’ve said about Adam Sandler movies not being funny (they’re still not) but that you should be able to make a tawdry quip about said atrocities being better than something far, far worse – such as the last political convention.
In the case of In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission – the latest in a film series that no one ever asked for in the first place – master craftsman Uwe Boll has brought us yet another boring paint-by-numbers adventure flick with very little going for it. Whereas the first, theatrically-released/unsuccessful movie starred a rather embarrassed Jason Statham, and the second, direct-to-video entry cast a desperate-for-work Dolph Lundgren, In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission scrapes the bottom of the barrel for a leading role by Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell – whose lack of anything that could even be remotely construed as a range is so lifeless, that one could tilt their head to the side to get the angle that the performer is sleepwalking because this movie is so dreadfully awful.
Of course, the reality may actually be that Purcell couldn’t act his way out a wet paper bag that had already been ripped open by a CGI dragon (which there are plenty of in In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission). Story-wise, the latest (and allegedly last, if the film’s subtitle is a true indicator) entry in this non-linear, nonsensical series finds asleep-at-the-wheel Purcell as a near-catatonic assassin (who leaves more fingerprints behind at the scene of his hit than if Helen Keller had been assigned the job) in modern-day urban Bulgaria (where all the best movies are made today) who winds up being tossed back in modern-day rural Bulgaria – which here doubles as a slightly older Bulgaria (where CGI dragons were aplenty). From there, Sominex Purcell finds himself in a blatant rip-off of Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness – wherein our sleepy-eyed star’s now-bulbous beet of a beefy head is a poor, poor man’s substitute for Bruce Campbell’s chin (not to mention charm).
He trains the cowardly village idiots how to fight. Uses a gun in medieval times (which he thankfully does not give a funny nickname to). Woos a local lass. Pits both brawn and brain (well, brawn) over an evil overacting bad guy who controls things that fly (there be those CGI dragons I spoke about earlier). Becomes a hero for a change. Engages in comically choreographed fight scenes. And, perhaps most importantly of all, he finally sounds like a professional for once – as the English his Bulgarian co-stars (played by people whose names end in As and Vs) spew out at great lengths is so appalling, even his Californian-by-way-of-Australian-though-born-in-the-UK-to-Norwegian-and-Irish-parents droning can be comparable to the voice of Orson Welles by comparison. And if you listen to it at the right angle, of course.
Likewise, In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission can be seen as a good movie to some – even though it is most unmistakably not – by just imagining how well the thousands and thousands of unsold, unused, and unreturned-for-full-refund copies will someday fill up a Walmart bargain bin in the immediate future.
Fox Home Entertainment brings us this fine film – which is most definitely destined to find its way onto the next Voyager spacecraft – onto Blu-ray in a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC transfer presented in a 1.85:1 ratio. The single-disc release also includes Digital and UltraViolet copies and the main feature sports a DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Subtitles are provided in English (SDH) and Spanish – and the only related bonus item is a far-too-lengthy-considering behind-the-scenes featurette which interviews cast and crew. Also housed on the disc are previews for several other films which, no matter how bad they may be by themselves (such as the Robocop remake, for example) can look like genuine cinematic classics when viewed either before or after In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission.
Providing you can squint your eyes, tilt your head, and look at it from the right angle, naturally.
