Movie Scene
Time travel stumbles in 'Black Knight'
By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News
If you accept the premise that Martin Lawrence is actually funny, then you have to conclude that he has terrible taste in comedy scripts and an inability to transform weak material through the sheer strength of his comic genius.
(Rated PG-13 for profanity, graphic violence, sexuality, partial nudity) One-half Star (Poor) A modern theme-park employee travels back to medieval times, to no comic effect whatsoever. Starring Martin Lawrence, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Conway. Directed by Gil Junger. Twentieth Century-Fox, 102 mins.
Or maybe he's just not funny. Period.
Still, someone thought "Black Knight" was a knee-slapper because here it is, crowding the multiplexes for Thanksgiving weekend. But there isn't a laugh to be had.
Ostensibly inspired by Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," "Black Knight" lists three script writers and two more scribes who are credited with the story. None of them, apparently, thought to write any actual jokes, counting on Lawrence's surpassing talent to get them out of tight spots. Wrong again.
Lawrence plays Jamal Walker, who works at a decrepit medieval-themed amusement park in Los Angeles. Stuck with cleaning the moat, he spots something shiny in the water — and when he leans over to retrieve it, he is sucked right into the Middle Ages.
Once there, he spends the first half-hour of the film convinced that he's still in the 21st century and that, somehow, he has landed on the property of his employer's new competitor, Castle World. Once he realizes that he's traveled into the past, he becomes embroiled in the politics of the period, supporting a band of resistance fighters against the mean king (Kevin Conway) and his meaner henchmen. He also redeems the honor of a disgraced nobleman (Tom Wilkinson), who is so generic that he barely exists as a character.
To capture the ambiance of its 14th-century setting, this movie appears to have been shot at one of those dinner theaters where they have jousting and force you to eat without silverware. The humor in the film is as thin as a Jennifer Lopez awards-show get-up. There is more amusement to be had in a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"You have to admire his commitment," a character observes of Walker at one point. "He is no longer funny and yet he refuses to give up on the joke."
For Lawrence, it's the story of his life.
Rated PG-13 for profanity, graphic violence, sexuality, partial nudity.
