To call a Uwe Boll movie bad would belabor a conversation long since over; to call it anything else would make you a dirty, dirty liar. At the very least, Dolph Lundgren's around to make it all a little more agreeable, but nothing will change the fact that In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds is a direct-to-video sequel shepherded by the man commonly referred to as the world's worst living director. Thrill-seekers venture if you must, but everyone else should feel free to judge this book by its cover.
The 'plot' (term used loosely) centers around the kind of medieval claptrap (the terms 'dark one' and 'enchanted place' are both spoken aloud here without any sense of irony) revered by the direct antecedents of hippies and their pretentious art-rock, intersected with the time travel plots popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s (think the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie). Needless to say, it's a movie out of time, but that's almost the least of its problems, as the sheer audacity of being so anachronistic generates the only good will that King has going for it. It's nowhere near enough to get it past the incoherent action sequences, sense-defying line-readings, and a general lack of raison d'etre.
That said, it's clear that Lundgren could actually make a film like this work as much as it ever could. He's a meaty enough guy that it makes a kind of direct-to-DVD sense that people would constantly be attacking him only to be swiftly defeated, and his demeanor is affable yet straight-faced enough that it seems responsive in kind to the insanity going on around him. In The Name Of The King 2 is not that film, nor is that film likely to be made any time soon now that the Berlin Wall has fallen, but occasionally, when there isn't a whole lot going on, that film is conceivable. That may be the nicest thing you can say about it.
SPECIAL FEATURES
There are two small featurettes on the making and the writing of the film (respectively) and a commentary track by both the writer and the director.
"In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds" is on sale December 27, 2011 and is rated R. Action, Adventure, Fantasy. Directed by Uwe Boll. Written by Michael Nachoff. Starring Dolph Lundgren, Natassia Malthe, Locklyn Munro.
