A Knight’s Tale” practically invites you to mock it. All you have to do is see the poster, with Aussie-heartthrob Heath Ledger’s visage looking scorched and stern, and the tagline “He will rock you.” Luckily, the film, for the most part, mocks itself and makes the film a fun and silly, if instantly forgettable, experiment in appeasing both the cape-wearing enthusiasts who follow Renaissance festivals across the nation and the Skoal-chewing thrillseekers who didn’t get into “Driven” because it was sold out.
As the film opens, the traditional “historical information” scroll goes up the screen, explaining the history of jousting. Strangely, the historical scroll doesn’t explain why all of the spectators begin pounding their fists and singing to the tune of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” in preparation for the opening jousting tournament. But this strange opening sequence, complete with the invaluable cut to a surly old man eating a big drumstick, is pretty funny and it lets you know nothing is going to be taken too seriously in the action that follows.
The story begins as William Thatcher (Ledger), a peasant squire, learns that his knight has died. Thatcher, who has always dreamed of being a knight despite his social status, decides to take the knight’s identity and win money in jousting matches. Thatcher’s two buddies reluctantly sign on to help him out. One buddy is played by Mark Addy, best known for playing the fat guy in “The Full Monty” and looking much more comfortable here than when he was sidekick to that freaky Michael Keaton snowman in “Jack Frost.”
On the way to a joust, the trio run into a naked Geoffrey Chaucer, who’s been cleaned out from his habitual gambling. Chaucer, known in the film simply as “Jeff” and played with gusto by Paul Bettany, joins the team and helps create the illusion that Thatcher really is royalty. Bettany steals the show while he’s onscreen with the movie’s smartest dialogue.
At a joust, Thatcher becomes smitten with Princess Jocelyn, who flirts with him and apparently shops at the local Versace. Newcomer Shannyn Sossamon plays the princess as too self-infatuated for audiences to really like. We kind of hope that Thatcher falls for his peasant blacksmith, Kate, who Laura Fraser plays as much more down to earth. But this romantic triangle never develops, though it feels like it might have in an earlier draft of the movie. Indeed, Jocelyn and Thatcher are very much in love, and this is reflected, quite originally, in a bizarre dance sequence where the two groove to David Bowie’s “Golden Years” with Jocelyn dressed like Cyndi Lauper.
Of course, someone must come between these two and threaten Thatcher’s dream to be a real knight. Apparently all of the other typecast British actors where out of town, because they had to settle on Rufus Sewell to play the villainous Count Adhemar. Sewell, also so darn electrifying in last year’s awful “Bless the Child,” plays Adhemar as really, really sleepy and disinterested. I guess he’s really the bad guy, because he has dark hair and dark facial features and because he puts little metal fists on the end of his jousting spears. Adhemar eventually exposes Thatcher’s fraud and, as a royal, plans to marry Princess Jocelyn. Thus, the conclusion of the film predictably will be the decisive joust between Thatcher and Adhemar.
Despite the predictability and unevenness of “A Knight’s Tale,” it is refreshing not to have the trendy plot where, say, Thatcher’s father and mother and entire extended family and pets brutally were killed by evil corrupt lords, and he vows vengeance for their deaths in brutal jousting matches. There are no deaths in the film and the tone is always pretty silly.
Director/producer/writer Brian Helgeland has genuine affection for the material, and even if the contemporary music is strange at times, at least he’s trying to make the familiar plot and characters a little more unpredictable and goofy. Some of his scenes are very good, such as Thatcher’s reunion with his blind father, which manages to be moving in spite of its sappiness.
The only real problem with the film is its jousting sequences. There’s nothing inherently captivating about jousting, no matter how Helgeland tries to spice it up. The joust entails two guys clad in armor riding horses toward each other, holding big wooden spears that are aimed at the opponent’s helmet. The spear hits the other man’s armor and splinters. This scene is repeated about 40 times in the film, sometimes in slow motion, sometimes in fast motion, sometimes with accentuated sound effects. Each time is less thrilling than the last, and the first time was definitely enough.
Overall, though, “A Knight’s Tale” is a sweet and good-natured action picture, especially for the pre-teen audience, and, of course, those who take their dates to the Medieval Times in Schaumburg. nyou
