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I have not been kind to Uwe Boll in the past. But to be fair, he has not been kind to us. Forget about the fact that he challenged Internet critics around the world to boxing matches (a sport for which he had been trained) and ducked my personal challenges to him for an eating contest at last year’s Comic-Con. Forget about the fact that he has made a career out of making an ass of himself in public, most notably his video rants in which he strikes out at everyone from Michael Bay and Eli Roth to George Clooney.

The guy hasn’t been fair to us because he has had plenty of opportunity to make decent films. Yet, he continues to feed us bad cinema, and his latest effort is In the Name of the King.

Boll must have some great blackmail material on these actors because the movie has a stellar cast. However, the cast can only bring so much. Actors that are otherwise decent (like Ray Liotta and Ron Pearlman) are wooden and worn in the movie. Great actors (like John Rhys-Davies) weather the storm but can’t make the role decent. And otherwise lame actors (like Matthew Lillard and Leelee Sobieski) show their true colors when they aren’t controlled.

Based on a video game, like all of Boll’s recent work, In the Name of the King follows a simple farmer (Jason Statham) who goes ape-shit crazy and hunts down the king when his warriors attack his village and kill his family. Everyone from rogue soldiers to forest pixies join in the fight to bring peace to the kingdom.

At first, I thought this film might be at least decent. After all, Boll’s movies are well shot, if anything. However, there is a rough mix of gritty celluloid and too-slick digital effects. It’s clear the man can handle the budget from the technical side, but his execution is awful.

I will go out on a limb here, though, and suggest that Boll’s biggest strength is his biggest weakness. This is a guy who has managed to make flop after flop yet still find investors. He’s able to do this due to lucrative tax laws in Germany (which, to his defense, he uses properly rather than how Hollywood does with shadow companies with completion funds).

Boll holds himself up as an icon of the independent filmmaker. And the fact that he can make these movies and command such sizable budgets shows that he has a talent for the organization of the industry at least. However, his own ego puts himself as the king of the movie. Much like the character of Gallion (Ray Liotta), he is an egomaniac trying to bully his underlings.

If Boll could get his ego in check, he might be able to find a decent writer, or even bring in a decent director and take the producer role. However, as Boll continues to make garbage cinema, a decent movie is not in his future.

The man at least has given us some breathing room. The rumor was that Boll had a 164-minute director’s cut, but he has mercifully left that off the DVD. This product comes with the two-hour theatrical cut, so curious minds can breathe a sigh of relief.

The DVD comes with scant special features. Only a fly-on-the-wall type of behind-the-scenes featurette is available.

THE UPSIDE: Uwe Boll’s movies continue to at least look decent.

THE DOWNSIDE: Well, it is Uwe Boll.

ON THE SIDE: For the record, I liked Eli Roth and Michael Bay’s latest films better than this one.