Back to the plot: after meeting and saving the life of the drunken Knolte
(who you just know is going to turn out to be a disgraced former knight)
Jamal, still not realising he's back in time, finds himself at the castle
of King Leo. Things take a turn for the ludicrous when he's mistaken for a
French envoy and before long is involved with a bunch of rebels trying to
overthrow Leo and return the throne to the rightful Queen.
Did I say plot?
Sorry, I meant never ending series of poo jokes and stupid faces. Also
acting as executive producer, Lawrence clearly had free reign to indulge in
as much mugging and schtik as he felt like. His idea of funny seems to be
spouting incomprehensible L.A. street talk and saying ass and shit a lot.
At least Lawrence's inspiration Eddie Murphy, even at his most irritating,
was still funny.
Although Lawrence is by far Black Knight's biggest problem, he is certainly
not its only one. The supporting players range from the embarrassed
(Wilkinson) to the embarrassing (just about everyone else), but given the
material they have to work with, it's not that surprising. The sets are
cramped and tatty, the photography lacklustre and composer Randy Edelman
rips off John Williams'
Jurassic Park.
score with abandon. With a more
appealing leading man, a better script, a stronger director and a more
talented cast, its could have approached mediocre watchability. As it is,
in what's been quite a year for cinematic stinkers, Black Knight is up
there with the worst of them.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
