A Knight's Tale Review

Amid all the extreme sports in the world, none hit harder than jousting, and that's probably why the sport died out except in dinner theatre and Renaissance festivals. However in 2001, director Brian Helgeland gave jousting, and knights in general, an electric guitar powered reboot in A Knight's Tale, starring Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight, The Patriot), Mark Addy (tv's Still Standing), and Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist, Amazing Grace).

The movie centers around a peasant squire, named William (Ledger), who takes up his masters lance in a match after his death. William then gets the bright idea to continue jousting, despite the fact that only royalty are allowed to participate. With the aid of his fellow squires, Roland (Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk), a writer named Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), and a female blacksmith, Kate (Laura Fraser), William begins entering jousting tournaments. He quickly meets the romantic interest who refuses to tell him her name (SPOILERish, it's Jocelyn, played by Shannyn Sossamon). Then, of course, enter the "black knight" if you will, Count Adhemar (Sewell), who just hates William from the start. Perhaps it's because of William's affections towards Jocelyn, or maybe Adhemar just sat on a lance wrong cause he's never a nice guy. Anyways, Adhemar and William joust once early in the film and William loses. This then makes William angry and he becomes determined to unhorse the count. As the film goes on, one thing or another keeps William and Adhemar from facing off till the end, where (again SPOILER) William does indeed unhorse Adhemar, win the World Championship, and of course win the girl as well.

Whoever casted this movie deserves a standing ovation and the Academy Award, because every person in the cast is a strong and believable player, right down to the small parts. Ledger in one of his earlier roles in life, played the part to perfection. If I didn't love his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight, I'd say it's his best.

The soundtrack is likely to be the most memorable part of the film though. From the opening credits playing "We Will Rock You" by Queen, and actually showing hundreds of peasants stomping and clapping to the song, to the climatic end of AC/DC's "Shook Me All Night Long", it's unlike anything I've ever seen, but it works.

And it works primarily because of the writing of the script in general. There are some scenes that when watching, I had to set my beer down to keep from spilling it, such as the moment in Paris (you'll know it when you see it). Then a couple moments where I really felt for the characters, specifically two great scenes with William and his father.

On the contrasting side however, it seemed a bit geared towards the "think-rather-than-do" generation. Despite the tagline of "any man can change his stars", I at times felt a disconnect between that and a real urge to do something. That may have just been because of it being a totally different time era (which was quite skewed itself).

Overall though, I loved this movie. It was funny, had a cute love story, great action, and above all else, phenomenal acting. It'd be a nice movie to watch as a family or on a date night.

Final Score: 9/10