Bloodrayne (2005)

After I was pleasantly surprised by the general enjoyability of In The Name Of The King - A Dungeon Siege Tale, I thought I'd brave another of Uwe Boll's infamous video game adaptations to see if I could scrape up some more morsels for recycling into Dungeons & Dragons inspiration.

I went for BloodRayne as it featured vampires, swords and the mega-hotness of Kristanna 'Terminator 3' Loken in the lead role.

Some films are renowned for being 'so bad' they are 'good' - BloodRayne isn't one of them.

Loken is Rayne, a half-human/half-vampire sired by Ben Kingsley's Kagan, lord of all vampires.

Escaping from the circus that was somehow holding her as a performing freak, she is tracked down by a band of vampire hunters - Vladimir (Michael Madsen), Sebastian (Matt Davis) and Katarin (Michelle Rodriguez).

Despite being members of a vampire hunting order called The Brimstone Society (in fact Vlaidmir might be the leader, it's never really made clear), they team up with Rayne and go looking for some payback against Kagan.

There are some powerful vampire relics thrown in as a scavenger hunt (although why the humans holding them didn't just destroy them is, again, never explained) and a slightly-confusing sub-plot with rebellious vampire Billy Zane, who also happens to be Katarin's father (I think).

Zane only appears in two scenes, but they are certainly the funniest - and not just because of the awful wig he is wearing.

Meanwhile Rayne is training with the Brimstone Society in their top secret island lair and has a random sex moment with Sebastian - who seems as shocked as the audience, as none of us had seen that coming.

All this nonsense is supposedly taking place in 18th Century Romania, but it could be Greyhawk, Ravenloft or countless other pseudo-medieval Dungeons & Dragons realms for all the verisimilitude or attention to detail.

The plot stumbles towards a final confrontation between father and daughter, in which we quickly realise that a lot of the brouhaha around the relics was just a red herring and finally Loken shows us some half-decent fight moves (having looked rather uncomfortable up until this point).

Lifeless fight sequences, uninspired performances and a confusing - possibly incomplete - storyline, can be blamed on the director.

However, Mr Boll can't be blamed for everything: Guinevere Turner's script has more info dumps of exposition than actual dialogue, for instance. When actual dialogue is allowed to sneak in - barring Billy Zane's couple of deadpan comedy zingers - it is of the lowest calibre, not helped by the top-flight stars delivering their lines in varying degrees of mumbling or monotone.

The only role-playing game moment that is possibly salvageable from all this is the near-Total Party Kill the script delivers quite spectacularly at its climax. 

However, BloodRayne doesn't so much end as just run out of script with a blank-faced Loken slumping down into her father's throne and staring forlornly into the camera.

The Sword of Xanten (2004)

Part Dungeons and Dragons romp, part Xena: Warrior Princess and a smidge of Lord of The Rings, Sword of Xanten is based on the Germanic myth Das Nibelungenlied and the Nordic Volsunga Saga, which also inspired the four-opera cycle by Richard Wagner and Tolkien's world famous ring-centric work.

The film is a loose retelling of the legend of Siegfried and Brunhild as swords-and-sorcery viewed through a soap lens.

Weaving a complicated plot, with inevitable unhappy ending, it's easy to see why Wagner would want to adapt this story.

The acting is fine for what it is and you can't help but be distracted by the gorgeous Kristanna Loken (T-X from Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines), perfectly cast as Icelandic warrior-queen Brunhild and the lovely Alica Witt as naïve Kriemhild.

Great scenery, slow-motion bundles (it's a bit of an exaggeration to call most of them 'fights'), arch acting and above-average CGI make for a great little pot boiler.

It's quite long (around three hours) but The Sword of Xanten (aka Ring of the Nibelungs) is non-stop fun and frolics all the way - with a bit of sauciness and a bit of blood - that can hold the attention of a willing viewer.

In The Name Of The King - A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

Forget whatever prejudices you may have against Uwe Boll for his previous crimes against cinema, forget whatever you've read about his eccentricities and conviction that he was the world's greatest film maker.

If you approach In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with an open mind, you might actually realise that it's a cracking swords and sorcery romp.

Sure, it lifts a lot from Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, but films and books have been ripping off Tolkien for years, even before Jackson's sublime films.

However, despite running about a half-hour too long and having a dialogue quota of two cheesey lines for every decent one, In The Name Of The King certainly ranks as one of my favourite "Dungeons & Dragons" films of the Noughties.

Based on a video game I was totally unaware of, the film has Jason Statham as a lowly farmer (with the required "secret destiny") - called Farmer, for reasons too dull to go into - whose village is attacked by the Krugs, a race of cut-price orc wannabes controlled by the wonderfully evil sorcerer Gallian (Ray Liotta).

Gallian has also seduced Muriella (Leelee Sobieski), the young fighter/magic-user daughter of the King's advisor, the magus Merick (John Rhys-Davies), and has convinced the king's foppish nephew Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard) that his Krugs will aid him in a coup.

The King, by the way, is Burt Reynolds.

The Krugs carry off Farmer's wife, Solana (Claire Forlani) and so aided by his old friend Norick (Ron Perlman) and Solana's brother he sets off in pursuit.

Meanwhile King Burt gets poisoned and a civil war breaks out.

On his travels Farmer meets some rather naff, bungee-vine-swinging "wood elves" (led by the gorgeous Kristanna Loken), who seem one of the more unnecessary elements in the film, gets captured by the Krug and meets up with Merick - who reveals that Farmer is, in fact, King Burt's son.

With Reynolds, Liotta, Lillard and Rhys-Davies all vying for a piece of scenery to chew, the film reeks of ham, but this adds to its harmless charm.

However, whenever Doug Taylor's script tries to tug at the heartstrings (such as the King's death scene) it is at its weakest, but luckily there's plenty of action and fighting to paper over these cracks. For instance, the climatic wizardly duel between Merick and Gallian, I would say, is less risible than the break-dancing challenge between Saruman and Gandalf in Fellowship Of The Ring.

The big battle scenes between Burt's boys and the Krug probably could have been trimmed and odd gimmicks, such as the burrowing Krug and the King's unit of Chinese wuxia skirmishers, are never really developed or even explained, but, for the most part, at least this film is never dull.

Great CGI scenery and pretty classy special effects help to elevate this above the normal straight-to-video swords and sorcery fare of yesteryear. 

It may not be 100 per cent original, and despite the title there are no "dungeons" and no "sieges", but I really enjoyed it and could happily see myself watching it again.

Although there were no large monsters in it, it certainly felt more Dungeons & Dragons-y than either of the first two 'official' Dungeons & Dragons films, from around the time this was made.

As a gamer I always look at this genre of film to see what I can take away from it. As Taylor and Boll have lifted from Tolkien and Jackson (and probably countless other sources), I reckon I can lift ideas from In The Name Of The King. I don't think I could ask for much more from such pulp fare.