A Knight's Tale Review
by Tim Wick
Ah the middle ages! Everyone (even the peasants) practiced good dental
hygene. They thrilled to the speactacle of knights jousting in slow motion.
They spent their evenings dancing to the strains of David Bowie's "Golden
Years."l
Wop bop bop, indeed (don't get the reference - listen to the song).
A Knights Tale is primarily about Heath Ledger - um - William Thatcher.
No, forget that, it's about Heath Ledger's hair - um - William Thatcher's
hair. Actually, I think it's more about Heath Ledger's eyes - um - William
Thatcher's eyes. Seriously, it's about jousting - sort of.
It's about jousting in the same way that The Abyss was about oil drilling
under water. You know that it's important and you even see a little (or in
this case - a lot) of it. But it's not really important.
What is important is that the jousting is done in slow motion. Preferably
with a pouding rock soundtrack. We also must get a view of Heath Ledgar's
hair and eyes.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't the first film to realize it needed to
capitalize on a teen heartthrob in order to draw viewers. I'm fine with
that. If the movie is good.
This movie - sadly - wasn't.
I could go on for hours about the anachrnisms, but they are not imporant.
In
fact the only reason they were jarring was because the filmmakers didn't
take
them further. If you are going to throw any semblance of period to the
wind,
make sure you throw it all. Don't keep a few minor pieces of it around
because it's convenient for the story.
When the movie started, I thought it was going to be a jousting comedy with
a
rock & roll soundtrack. Honestly, that would have worked. Instead, it was
a
partial comedy with an occasional rock soundtrack that spent too much time
taking itself seriously. Had it not done so, it just might have worked.
Don't get me wrong, it was never greatest movie of the decade material, but
it could have been a solid popcorn film.
Instead, it spent the entire film trying to decide what kind of movie it
wanted to be. By the time it had made it's (wrong) decison, it had lost me.
The movie created some interesting characters, that it primarily ignored and
had an interesting premise, that it squandered.
Overall, this is a film that will quickly be forgotten despite it's seeming
lack of competition in the jousting rock opera genre. It didn't have to be
that way, but it didn't have faith enough it what it was.
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