JAM Reviews In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

In the Name of the King 2:Two Worlds: Blu-Ray: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Review by JAM

Long ago in a land faraway, a common man led his people in revolt against an evil sorcerer in a video game adaptation that had moments of coolness mainly due to Jason Statham playing the common man promoted to the throne. The action stunts were fun as in any Statham movie, it had Ray Liotta playing a crazy sorcerer (overplaying actually) and Burt Reynolds as the king attempting to hold his land together. It was fun and over the tip with fairly well choreographed stunts and fight scenes. Well, they decided to make a sequel with Dolph Lungren as the long lost son of the king sent away.

Starting in present day Earth, Dolph Lungren plays Granger, an old soldier tired of the game, teaching self-defense to kids when he is interrupted by two sides of an other-world war in search for him. Accosted by darkly clad warriors, Granger of course follows the beautiful sorceress (Natalia Guslistaya) sent for him into a dark world waiting for their “Chosen” one. Between the death of the sorceress, the meeting with the now appointed king (Lochlyn Monroe), and an attempt on his life, Granger finds himself drawn into a conflict he thinks not his own as he is directed to end the life of the Holy Mother. Lines are blurred between good and evil as dragons, death, and destruction reign supreme.

JAMS Ink on In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds

Rustic locales and a sword and sorcery epic always go well together. Add in an 80s icon like Dolph Lungren and you have the aspects of a B movie classic. I don’t know if this makes the classic level like Hobo with a Shotgun, but it has its moments. If there was one thing for me to gripe about it would be that many of the more intriguing characters seem underused. The doctor (Natassia Malthe) equipped with poison to take out an entire village with a plague, who is also Granger’s love interest, gets tossed aside as a seemingly unused plot element for a time. The daughter of the Holy Mother (Heather Doerksen), promoted to queen in Granger’s place, is barely introduced and given the throne. It just seemed to suffer from underdeveloped plot issues that could have made it a more fun movie.

BLU-RAY Aspects

The local looks beautiful as Granger explores the lands he was from. The rustic hills and valleys, the dark forests, and the shadowy castle all ensure the beauty of the backdrop to the story. The CGI Dragon fits fairly well into the picture as well. I personally enjoyed the Blu-ray aspect of the film, and being as the film comes from a video game background I would recommend BLU-RAY YES on this one.

EXTRAS

Dual commentaries start off the extras on this disc as the director and writer join us on separate commentaries with their thoughts on the movie. Uwe Boll focuses mainly on the creative process and working with the actors in question while Michael Nachoff the writer tells about what was changed in the film from his vision to its transition to the screen. There is also a behind the scenes featurette with Uwe and the actors with some on set insight and a featurette with Nachoff discussing how his script tied in with the original movie and a shared look at his writing process.

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