A Knight's Tale

“You have been weighed, you have been measures and you have been found wanting”



Date watched- 24th October 2010

Genre; Comedy, Period, Romantic,Action
Year; 2001
Running Time; 2 hour 12 mins
Director; Brian Helgeland
Written By; Brian Helgeland
Actors; Heath Ledger, Rufus Sewell, Shannyn Sossamon, Paul Bettany, Laura Fraser, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk, James Purefoy et al.

Acting 3.5/5
Keeping my attention 3.5/4
Visuals/Direction 4.5/5
Story/Plot 4.5/6
Total 16/20

Plot

When a Knight dies at a jousting tournament one of his servants (William Thatcher- Ledger) takes his place to complete the tournament, much to the annoyance of the Knight’s other two servants (Addy and Tudyk). This then gives William an idea, continue to joust as a lord. With the help of his companions which later include Geoffrey Chaucer (Bettany) and a female blacksmith (Fraser), Thacher (now as Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein, of Gelderland) competes around Europe. Will he be able to defeat the evil Count Adhemar(Sewell) and win the heart of Lady Jocelyn (Sossamon), all without being found out for the ‘fake’ he is?

My Personal Views

So this is the first time that I have watched a Heath Ledger movie since his death in January 2008, and I wonder why, most of his movies (that I’ve seen) are great as demonstrated by this one and he was a very talented actor. I think it’s something to do with loss, even if it’s someone that you have never met. For instance it took me at least 6 months after Michael Jackson’s death to listen to one of his songs, and I still haven’t listened to a Boyzone song all the way through since the death of Stephen Gately. Anyway this isn’t telling you anything about this movie.

All in all this movie is great, apart from one thing, and I hate being mean but... Shannyn Sossamon. I know that she was discovered while she was DJ-ing at a party and didn’t have much acting experience at this time but it does sound a little like she could just be reading her lines off the paper they are written on (I’m sure I wouldn’t be any better though), she is very pretty though and I’m sure her acting skills must have improved over the years as (according to IMDB) she is still acting now.

This movie is well constructed and uses modern musical hits well, to the stage where (if you aren’t too picky) you don’t notice the fact that Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and other classics are played throughout. In fact now whenever I hear David Bowie’s ‘Golden Years’ I can see Ledger and Sossamon dancing around at the ball.

There are a few continuity errors that even I could see (watch out for Chaucer’s miraculously changing sides bloody nose etc) but all in all this movie is a gem amongst period type movies. And it’s not too violent for younger audiences either. This isn’t the most historically accurate movie you will ever see but surely we can all forget about that for an hour and 40 minutes and just enjoy. Surely?

P.S. Will someone please put Rufus Sewell in a big budget movie where he isn’t playing the bad guy? On behalf of women everywhere, thank you.

Outcome

Staying well put in the DVD collection.