Possibly the worst move I've ever seen

And that's saying something, 'cause I've seen some doozies. But I'm fairly certain In the Name of the King - A Dungeon Siege Tale is it. Why, you ask?

First, there's the premise. I've played Dungeon Siege in all its variations (well, I think I've actually only played DS 1, the "Aranna" expansion pack (now available together in this convenient two-pack, and DS 2. Missed the DS 2 "Broken World Expansion Pack" and any other versions that weren't on the PC). It's a fine game: you're a farmer or something, some weird monsters called the Krug attack, and you go on a rampage linear adventure until you've become the most badass of bad asses in the land. As I recall (and I haven't played the game in a few years) there's no king. Just lots and lots of killing and making allies with various other characters. But let's face it, it ain't a movie waiting to happen.

That said, I can see how someone might think this was a good idea: pre-existing market, pre-developed monster characters, a relatively known universe, and Jason Statham as the farmer. Throw a few other big-name actors and people will go see it, right? Sure!

Well, it didn't quite work out that way thanks to the insanely horrible script. They got Statham, and they lined up some other stars (Ray Liota as the evil wizard, Burt Reynolds as the king, Ron Perlman as our hero's friend and guardian, John Rhys-Davies as the good wizard, and the lovely Leelee Sobieski as the good wizard's daughter who is duped by the evil Ray Liota), but how they did with that script I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that director Uwe Boll must have had dirt on them all. Or offered them a shitton of money. Because Jesus God that's some bad writing. Bad to the point that 12-year-old Logan Chicken was amazed at its badness.

Admittedly I watched it on SciFi (yes, I am blatantly ignoring their re-spelling of the word), so maybe they edited out some good dialog or plot points, but I'm doubtful. Because even if there were three or four minutes of decent script cut out it won't make up for lines like "Those who you fight, we will help you fight them." In fact, I think the best line in the movie was from King Burt who said, in response to something said by Good Wizard Rhys-Davies, "What the hell does that mean?" And I'm pretty sure that was ad-libbed.

In the movie's favor, the action scenes were OK. Not great, but OK. And hey, it won an award or two! At least according to IMDB, anyway, taking the illustrious Special Award at the 2007 Hessian Film Awards for Wolfgang Herold's sound supervision. More importantly it won the 2009 Razzie for Worst Director for Mr. Boll, but amazingly didn't win worst picture or worst screenplay (losing out to The Love Guru in both categories).

So why did I watch this piece of garbage? Well, because I'd played the game, because I like Statham's work, because it was on TV, and because I was stunned by how bad it was and just couldn't look away.