Posted on: Friday, May 11, 2001
Movie Scene
At the Movies: `A Knight's Tale'
By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
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| William (Heath Ledger), left, and Chaucer (Paul Bettany) celebrate one of the young knight's many victories on the tournament field in Columbia Pictures' "A Knight's Tale." The movie is a very free adaption of one of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." A KNIGHT'S TALE Opens Friday May 11 Two Stars (Fair) Rated PG-13 for profanity, violence, partial nudity Associated Press |
The commercials for "A Knight's Tale" — the first of which aired during this year's Super Bowl — would have you believe that this is a rock 'n' roll jousting movie.
Not quite.
In fact, this glossy, predictable tale only rarely evinces a rocker's attitude.
"A Knight's Tale" is really a silly, romantic adventure that tips its hand long before it reaches the final joust.
Heath Ledger ("The Patriot") plays William Thatcher, squire to a 14th-century English knight. But when the knight dies in the film's opening minutes, just before a jousting tournament, William dons the knight's armor and takes his place in order to win the prize that will buy dinner for him and his fellow squires.
He carries it off, which leads to a bright idea that requires an entire new existence: He will pass himself off as Sir Ulrich of Gelderland and join the jousting circuit to make his fortune. His fellow squires, Wat (Alan Tudyk) and Roland (Mark Addy), point out that this is forbidden: Jousting tournaments are open only to the truly titled. But William sees a way to "change his stars," as his father told him, even if it means bending the rules.
There has to be a love interest, so writer-director Brian Helgeland has William meet and fall for the exotic-looking Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon), a titled lady who succumbs to his charms. And what would a knight-in-shining-armor tale be without a black-hatted, er, helmeted villain? So we get the snotty Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell), who casts disdaining looks in William's direction before defeating him in their first meeting.
Given those elements, it's not hard to connect the dots of the plot. Will boy get girl before the bad guy discovers his secret? Will boy face bad guy in climatic joust against horrendous odds? If you honestly don't know the answer, then here's the movie for you (assuming you ever get out of the cave in which you dwell).
The story is as minimal as the character development — and then there's that music: soggy, dinosaur rock like "Takin' Care of Business," the Rare Earth version of "Get Ready" and, for a change of pace, David Bowie's "Golden Years." The latter is used in a sequence at a tournament ball where the participants suddenly begin dancing as though they were on MTV's "Total Request Live."
Yet Helgeland can't find a way to apply that contemporary feeling to the rest of the film — or even the rest of the music.
What you're left with, then, is the action — or, more accurately, the jousting. Helgeland highlights it by having the lances explode into splinters upon contact (actually, a blend of balsa wood and dry linguini), a slow-motion image that's effective the first dozen or so times you see it — but not the next 20.
Ledger is earnest and stalwart, suited to be a hero of this era. Sossamon has a pleasantly flirtatious quality, while Sewell, with his one hooded eye, is the perfect black knight.
"He will rock you," say the ads for "A Knight's Tale." Big talk; not much rock.
