A Knight’s Tale

The general who became a slave…the slave who became a knight…the knight who defied an Emperor…oops, wrong movie! Uuuuhhm, here we’ve got a peasant squire who pretends to be a knight, wins a few jousting matches and falls for Angelina Jolie…I mean, the noble babe. And…action!

A sure-to-be crowd pleaser. This movie’s got a little bit of everything. A little bit of action for the boys, a little bit of romance for the girls and a little bit of humor, drama and happy-go-luckiness for everyone! Is it a great movie? Certainly not. It doesn’t really bring to light a story that we haven’t seen before (Gladiator!), doesn’t avoid the trappings of sappy romantic dialogue from the day (“my love has wings so I must fly”??) and doesn’t mind the occasional reference to a modern symbol that simply distracts (watch for the Nike wings that get carved into one man’s fighting armor…I kid you not!), but alas, I had a good time. And that’s the exact reason why some of these smaller details didn’t bother me as much as they might another. I didn’t expect to like this film, I expected to be bored, I expected lame action sequences, but ultimately, this film surprised me. It was entertaining, had some very cool jousting scenes and it even had my movie companion (my sis) close to tears at one point (yeah, yeah, I might’ve gulped a little harder than usual, too!). And the whole debate about the use of modern rock music in a medieval movie?

Well, I was for the music being in the film before I actually saw it, believing that it would only energize the proceedings. But now that I’ve seen it, I’m actually half-and-half on the topic. You see, the modern songs that play in the background during the film, worked just as I thought they would, spicing up the scenes as only the chorus of “Taking care of business” could. But where the filmmakers mucked up in my point of view, is when they actually had the folks in the movie grooving ALONG with some of the songs (i.e. in other words, they could also hear the songs in question). Now that didn’t work for me! A crowd of medieval folk chanting along with Queen’s “We will, we will rock you!” just felt…well, out of place! Anyway, enough about that. In the end, the film entertains and I guess that’s the main goal of a picture as such. There are ups, there are downs, there are goofy moments, there are romantic moments and there are moments of action. The lead male is a babe and all of the central women in the film are also quite fetching. And Rufus Sewell, well, he’s the bad guy again…but a damn good bad guy! Oh yeah, and lest me not forget to credit the filmmakers another notch for incorporating some empowered ladies into the mix of the medieval times as well. A welcome addition. So overall, I don’t think that this film will blow anyone away, an effect it certainly did not have on me, but it looked good, it felt good…so it must’ve been good, right? Now go in, relax, have fun…and get medieval on your own ass!! (sorry, I just couldn’t resist)

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian