A Knight's Tale (2001)
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The Summer of 2001 was a miserable time for Hollywood blockbusters, critical derision and poor audience figures plagued the likes of “Pearl Harbour”, “Planet of the Apes” and “Final Fantasy”. However, there was some relief for the cinema-goers in the form of this entertainingly anachronistic medieval-set action movie from director Brian Helgeland.
The basic concept is simultaneously simple, silly and effective. The film concentrates on the medieval sport of jousting and introduces the traditional hero and villain and sets them fighting to the accompaniment of 1970's rock music and an atmosphere more usually associated with 20-th Century sporting events. Surprisingly, the unlikely merging of 15-th and 20-th Century works brilliantly to produce an undeniably silly but hugely entertaining movie.
The plot centres around William Thatcher (Heath Ledger), a thatcher’s son who works as a squire for an elderly knight. After the knight expires shortly before a joust that would give him victory in a small tournament, William decides that - to gain the prize money - he should take part in the joust disguised as his former master.
After the success of this scam, William and his equally lowly-born companions Wat (Alan Tudyk) and Roland (Mark Addy) decide that there might be great profit in continuing the ruse at other tournaments. William is a capable sword-fighter and horseman who is easily capable of winning tournaments, with a bit of training. The catch is that only nobles are permitted to compete in the jousting, any peasants attempting to take part would be arrested if found out. William must therefore pose as Sir Ulrich Von Liechtenstein from far off Gelderland, and hope he isn’t caught out. To help out a medieval writer named Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) is recruited to fabricate a past as a great warrior for Sir Ulrich. Unfortunately, despite initial success problems start to arise after William begins a possible romance with Jocelyn, a noblewoman, and manages to make an enemy of Count Adamar (Rufus Sewell), a cruel and highly-skilled knight.
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That plot is entertaining enough, if rather implausible, but where this movie excels is in the smaller details. The dialogue is excellent, with a vaguely medieval feel while still being perfectly intelligible and offering plenty of amusing remarks. Chaucer’s introduction to the crowd of Sir Ulrich before each fight is particularly entertaining, being reminiscent of the over-the-top nonsense spouted before Wrestling matches - but in a medieval setting, of course. The actors all acquit themselves well, with William’s companions being extremely likeable and Count Adamar suitably despicable.
The jousting scenes raise the question of why Hollywood doesn’t make more films with knights in them, they’re a welcome change from the cliched gun-battles of other action movies, while still being both exciting and convincing. Since there are several tournaments in the film’s (rather long) running time there is plenty of opportunity to admire the explosive collisions between the two knights.
One of the most talked-about and controversial aspects of the film is the many anachronisms scattered through out. This is most blatantly seen in the opening title sequence as the medieval crowd does Mexican waves and claps around to the soundtrack - at the time Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. If you can overlook how undeniably silly this is, the mixture of modern music and (generally convincing) medieval backgrounds is surprisingly effective.
In summary, this is an extremely fun film although difficult to take seriously due to the anachronistic soundtrack and rather silly ending. Excellent entertainment.
Rating : 8½ / 10
DVD Review (Region 1)
The DVD has quite a number of features to justify it's "Special Edition" tag. The best are numerous deleted scenes, mostly good enough to be in the final film, but presumably there wasn't time. Also there are a number of featurettes which cover every aspect of the film, including a number of amusing comments. There is also a director's commentary as well as trailers and the somewhat less interesting prospect of a Robbie Williams movie video, for his cover of Queen's "We Are The Champions".
DVD Rating : 8 / 10
Click here to buy the DVD at Amazon.co.uk
All content ©2003 William Marnoch.
Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .