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Member since:24.04.2005
Reviews:29
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I was looking forward to "A Knight's Tale," mainly because it had Heath Ledger in. I loved his performance in "10 Things I hate About You" and so when I saw this on special offer in MVC (£5.99 if you spend £20 or more), I thought yay! let's get it. However I was due to be disappointed with this film. Much as Heath Ledger's acting ability could not be called into question, I found the movie to be just not quite good enough!
It starts off quite well. Heath Ledger's character, William Thatcher, is in the service of a Knight (Sir Ector) competing in the jousting games who dies just before he is due in a match. Thatcher decides it will be a great idea to take his place and dons his clothes and under such disguise begins his jousting career. Only trouble is, as he is not a noble he is forbidden to take part in the jousting games. So begins the web of lies and deceit He persuades his friends, Roland (Mark Addy - "The Full Monty") and Wat Falhurst (Alan Tudyk - "28 Days") to pretend to be his servants in the aim of winning lots of dosh from the jousting tournaments.
Along comes Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany - "Master and Commander" and "A Beautiful Mind") in the buff. If you want to see Paul Bettany in the buff, this is the movie,
as it happens twice. Turns out he has gambling debts and his creditors have literally taken the clothes off his back. In exchange for some clothes, he offers his services, as not only does he have the gift of the gab, but he also is able to forge the necessary papers for Thatcher to pretend to be a noble and thus enter into the games.
So, why did I have a problem with this movie? It should have been a great movie with such a great cast. Well, there are two reasons.
Firstly, and most fatally in my opinion, the love story was hideously unbelievable. Thatcher meets a girl who is quite attractive and he goes after her. Not that different from most movies, but then for no explainable reason he turns on her in the middle of the film in a rage, calling her a silly girl, and saying completely stupid and unreasonable things. Normally you would expect there to be some reason behind an outburst like this but none was forthcoming, and then he decides well actually I do want her after all, and he has to enlist Chaucer's help to woo her in writing. So, now in order to win her love, he has to lose all his matches. Of course in the nick of time, she changes her mind so he can actually win the tournament. All in all, I felt this element of the story fell flat on it's face. Shannyn Sossamen doesn't do too badly in her role as Jocelyn, I just found that this part of the story didn't work.
The second reason was the dancing scenes, you go from the usual 14th century style dancing to modern day disco in the blink of an eye. Just what was that? This is not "A Kid in King Arthur's Court" from which you would expect things like that. Nor was it a farce like "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." Films like that can get away with that, but this, while it is a comedy is actually a more serious film than that, and I felt that it was out of place. While I appreciate that they were trying to give this movie a contemporary feel, I just felt that this was a step too far.
However, criticisms over with, there were actually some good parts to this film. Hence the three stars. Notably Paul Bettany's performance is superb, and his speeches are wonderful to behold. He really threw himself into this part. In fact it is worth watching the deleted scenes on this one as it shows an extended version of one of his speeches.
The supporting characters played by Alan Tudyk and Mark Addy are well-played with a good deal of humour. Count Adhemar, Thatcher's chief opponent in love and in the games is well-played by Rufus Sewell with sufficient evil characteristics to make him a thoroughly unlikeable character.
Of course having Queen's music in the background was a big plus, as it gave this film a good atmosphere. The atmosphere was also helped by filming this in the Czech Republic. As it is much the same as it was in the Middle Ages, it lends itself to the authenticity of a film like this. They used many local people as extras, again adding to the authenticity, as they already had the right air about them for people of the Middle Ages enjoying the jousting matches. And while I didn't like what they did with the dancing, most of the other ways in which they made this a rather more contemporary film worked including using Queen's music, which has just the right feel to bridge the gap between ye olde worlde to modern day.
Special features include the Making of Featurette, which includes a bit about them filming on location in the Czech Republic, the Deleted Scenes (of course) which I have already mentioned, is worth watching if only for Paul Bettany's speech making ability. There is also a Robbie Williams & Queen Music Video, which is just scary. Robbie Williams being Freddie Mercury...... what can I say? And taking off John Lennon.
For PC users there is also a screensaver. The graphics on this are rather good, and it's 3D. However, this is Wildtangent software, which we have had problems with on our computer as they use spyware. Whether this includes the spyware or not, I think I will not be keeping it as I don't want to have the problem again. There is a weblink on this as well, which no longer works as it's an old link, so it's not much use.
The filmographies are quite interesting, I found out Paul Bettany had been in a few more movies than I had realised. Of course quite a few were movies I hadn't heard of but nonetheless interesting.
So all in all a good quality movie by Director Brian Helgeland which should have been worthy of a higher rating, but fell short because of a few quirks.
I've put that it's value for money as satisfactory as I'm glad we only paid £5.99 for it. I wouldn't pay more for it though. Amazon.co.uk are selling it for £15.99. If you can get it cheaper and you don't mind the modernising of a medieval tale, then I would. Otherwise wait till it's on a really special offer, as it's actually not that bad, it's just not that good.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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good review, it is a good film and paul bettany is wonderful as chaucer. i know what you mean with the dancing scene, i hated that, went too modern in like a second. really didnt suit the film. samxx
jankperegrine 28.06.2005 00:18
3 stars seems right to me too. Well said.........jan
tom_very1st 14.06.2005 21:14
Good review, dont think i'll be rushing to watch this one any time soon! - tom
There's no rule against rock anthems from the 1970s in the soundtrack for a movie about a ... more
medieval jousting champion, but if you're going to attempt such jarring anachronisms, you'd better establish acceptable ground rules. Writer-director Brian Helgel...
Postage & Packaging: £1.24 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
The 14th Century takes on a new look in A KNIGHT'S TALE.Heath Ledger is William Thatcher, ... more
a peasant squire who breaks all the rules when he passes himself off as a knight and takes the jousting world by storm. The only thing that stands between William...
Advantages: Good fun for children and adults with no sensibilities Disadvantages: Acting and actors not worth mentioning, ludicrous score, ludicrous modernism, goes on far too long
Charles_Strickland 05.10.2006 (07.11.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of A Knight's Tale (DVD)
![A Knight's Tale [DVD] [2001]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78527850.jpg "A Knight's Tale [DVD] [2001]")
May 15th, 2005
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
