by Nathan on 25 May 2012, 17:18
Oh dear, what can I say.
Let's start off with the cinematography since that is an actual positive trait that this movie carries. I know that the budget was more generous than any of Dolph's other recent solo outings but the number of locations were few and far between really, for example. why did the black forrest look the same as the other forrests? Was there any need for the karate studio scene? It was the most expensive and "American" looking scene in the movie, aside from his house, but I didn't feel that the introduction to Dolph's character was particularly neccessary. That said, the actual colours and everything look very good, the costumes looked okay, Dolph's made him look a bit fat and the King's crown looked as if it came from Poundland, but other than that, everything looked okay physically.
Which takes me to the acting. Despite the scenery being pretty nice and very gritty, it's a shame that most of the actors chewed it up and spat it out. It was like, here is a nice canvas for you to paint the rest of the picture on, and instead Uwe Boll has vomitted on it, with all the artistic merit of a dog shit in the park. The acting was as I expected and I could actually see what he was trying to do with the film and with the script and how the two worlds met, especially the differences in dialogue. It was handled very badly though. Dolph had a few good lines and it was the fact that he performed the whole movie with the same smirk that made it that little bit more enjoyable.
Now onto the action. There was a lot less than I was expecting. This was possibly the most disappointing part really, considering it was meant to be an action film, I found myself more entertained during the dialogue scenes in between times. The action was the highlight of the first movie but here the fights are slow, badly filmed, badly edited, atrocious angles, lack any sort of impact, poor choreography, too short, no danger, no decent MA or even sword play from Dolph and the final fight was possibly the most anti-climatic since Diamond Dogs. The dragon had the most interesting fight scene - luckily the CGI wasn't too embarrassing.
Overall I hate slating Dolph movies, but lets not kid outselves, this is no Dolph movie, the blame falls at Uwe's feet and to be honest, a real ewe would have probably made a better job of directing what was an ambitious, perhaps uneccessarily ambitious DTV plot. When will they learn to keep it simple. (No question mark, as its rhetorical.)
"Are we having fun yet?" - Dolph Lundgren, Universal Soldier