★ 8 / 10
Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend
Kamurai
Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend. What a fantastic cast: I honestly don't know if you could have cast it better. Just thinking about Alan Tudyk…
Great watch, will watch again, and do recommend.
What a fantastic cast: I honestly don't know if you could have cast it better. Just thinking about Alan Tudyk, Heath Ledger, and Shannyn Sossamon makes me smile.
Everyone plays their roles fantasticly, taking their stock characters, and spinning the writing to the 9th degree: the jerks are hate-able jerks and I can't help but love the leads and supporting characters.
Part of what makes this movie disctinct is that they forces some modern (for the time) music into it when it very did not belong with medieval England / Europe. There are several scenes where if you squint, you could mistake the movie for "10 Things I Hate About You" or some other teen rom com of that time period.
Fortunately they found a way to balance the jousting content with personality stories, which are by far more entertaining, but unless you're Kevin Smith, you can't exactly cut jousting out of a movie set in competitions for jousting.
This is a fun movie with some positive messaging in it about women and class rights, please give this a go.
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★ 10 / 10
My dad, rest his soul, really liked this
GenerationofSwine
My dad, rest his soul, really liked this and at the time it came out I was a pretentious college student that had forsaken all things fun and couldn't…
My dad, rest his soul, really liked this and at the time it came out I was a pretentious college student that had forsaken all things fun and couldn't understand what my father could possibly like about it.
And now I'm living in a world where someone makes a tweet with the president's head morphed onto Rocky Balboa's body and people are freaking out and screaming "How am I supposed to take it, if not totally literally!"
And I'm sitting off to the side, mumbling that it was just a joke, and seeing my old self that hated A Knight's Tale reflected in those people and thinking "I was a real humorless prig for about four solid years, thank every god that has ever been worshiped that I grew out of that."
When I first saw it I thought the part where the smith added the Nike swoosh to the armor was horrible because, well, I was pretentious and took life far too seriously.... blatant product placement!... sweatshops!...child labor!.... Corporatism! Whatever!
And now that said phase in my life has melted away, it's just a joke and honestly kind of a cute one.
And then the same can be said about Chaucer.... and literary genius, how dare they slander such a.... and now that I'm older he was absolutely the best part of the movie wasn't he?
Classic rock music in movie about the dark ages and... pandering... unrealistic... blah, blah, blah, and now that that ill informed phase in life wore off, it works on multiple levels and most surprisingly they succeed in using it to make you laugh.
I guess the point is that now that I learned to actually enjoy things and not take everything so seriously, so literally, and understand a joke is just a joke, it's a super fun and hysterical comedic romp and to watch it is to love it.
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★ 8 / 10
Absolutely unexpected pleasure. Light-hearted but satisfying on many levels
mstomaso
This wonderfully uplifting little film has a great big heart, good humor, and a classic message about love and honor, and the rarity and preciousness of those…
This wonderfully uplifting little film has a great big heart, good humor, and a classic message about love and honor, and the rarity and preciousness of those who practice both with style. I went to see this with my spouse and a good friend of ours because THEY (the spouse and the friend) wanted to see it. I am a non-fan of comedies, and had been annoyed by the stream of trashy Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court films that had been coming out since the 1980s. My spouse had also informed me that I would be seeing Jousting performed to Bachman Turner Overdrive. My reaction was to reach for the nearest bottle of hard liquor. I didn't need it.I've now seen this film about six times, and though I can't say that I see something new in it every time (it's just not that complicated), I can say that I have enjoyed it each and every time. The characters, though relatively uncomplicated, are very lovable and the casting is quite excellent all around. Before Brokeback Mountain, William Thatcher was Heath Ledger's most memorable role. He's a poor boy from London's Cheapside who wants to change his stars and to become an honored knight. Travelling from tournament to tournament with his fellow indentured servants, his liege passes on, and William seizes the moment - taking his armor and his horse to become Sir Ulrich Von Liechtenstein of the Gelderland. He is joined by the other now-free indentures, and eventually, by Chaucer and a female Farrier played by the wonderful Laura Fraser. Eventually, William falls in love with a princess and is challenged by a rival for her affections with a lot more experience, money and political clout. The love story, which could have easily become a distracting annoyance, in fact, comes to dominate and drive the story very nicely.Special kudos to Ledger, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell, Paul Bettany and James Purefoy for their awesome performances. And extra special kudos to Director Brian Helgeland for pulling off an impossible task - taking a fairy tale, making us want to believe it, and yet retaining some wonderful elements of silliness often missing in the fairy tale genre. This would make a wonderful romantic living-room double feature with The Princess Bride.Recommendation: Definitely worth seeing.
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60%
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thanks!