Hey folks, Harry here and I really don't like the following reviewer because he takes a shot and off-handedly dismisses the entire work of Errol Flynn... as a result I can only assume he has never seen THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, THE SEA HAWK, THE ADVENTURES OF DON JUAN, CAPTAIN BLOOD, THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON, SANTA FE TRAIL, DIVE BOMBER, EDGE OF DARKNESS and his many other classic films. Now given that he seems completely unfamiliar with the classic films of the genre in question, I really can't take his opinion for much... However... if you are also unaware of the classics of the genre, then by all means this review will have significance for you. For me though... It holds no excitement though he says he really quite enjoyed himself. Read on.... and rent the classics too!
Harry,
My girlfriend got invited to a screening of A Knight's Tale last night (she works for a music company and the screening was to push the soundtrack). I didn't really want to go, because frankly I'm no fan of watching her swoon over Heath Ledger (that Vanity Fair cover was in her bathroom for months). But she pointed out that a free movie's a free movie so I went. And I'm glad I did -- I was blown away. I had put Ledger in the Freddie Prinze category of cute guys who can't act. I didn't like The Patriot, but I don't really go for those sweeping historical dramas... and with a movie about knights I thought "here we go again." But he was really good in this. He carried off all the action/fighting, he was convincing in the story of a poor man whose only chance to break out of his lower class life is to pretend to be a knight... and all of the risks of being discovered that come with it.
And – here's the shocker – he was funny.
Sure, there are some predictable things about the film, but there were in Star Wars too, eh? What this shares with Star Wars is the basic white-knight vs. black-knight conflict, adds a dash of fighting over the girl, and instead of light sabers you've got lances. OK, no empires striking back either, but you know what I mean.
Knight's Tale definitely falls as much into the comedy category as action. There were plenty of laughs. And once you got into the story, even the somewhat predictable bits didn't get in the way of it being a hugely entertaining couple of hours. The guy at the screening said they're cutting some time off it, which is probably good, but I can't really see what there is to cut.
As great as Heath Ledger was, some of the scenes were stolen by the guy who plays Chaucer... you don't need to know who Chaucer was (my girlfriend didn't, and I just remember Chaucer from college trying to read that old English and getting a headache). He's incredibly funny as both a Cyrano for Heath, helping him charm the girl he wants, and as a combination of Ed McMahon and the "let's get ready to rumble" guy. By the time this movie is out of theaters, Heath will be a star and everyone will know the guy who plays Chaucer. I was expecting Mark Addy to be the main comic relief, and he's funny, but Chaucer stole that show.
Since they were there to push the soundtrack, everyone was talking afterward about how the rock & roll music worked or didn't work in the movie. I'd say 90% thought it worked really well. Really, how many of us want to sit through madrigals and lutes? It made the jousting and sword-fighting seem really modern, like it's another extreme sport (I heard on the radio recently about these bars running bicycle jousting contests, so maybe it *is* the next extreme sport). This is music we associate with arena sports... super bowl, world series, Stanley Cup... so we're kind of primed to get our adrenaline up when we hear "We Will Rock You." And it was a funny comment on us in the modern world to see fans at a joust doing the wave.
The other thing I think worked about the soundtrack is that the story seems really modern. You won't find me sitting in front of the tv watching Errol Flynn film festivals on AMC, and I guess there's a risk of people looking at this movie like one of those. But the story's sensibility is more modern and the music is probably part sales tool to convince us that this isn't your father's swashbuckler movie... and part dramatic device to help us see the more modern aspects of the story. To me, it really made the movie.
Milo
