A Knight's Tale (2001)
What a delightfully bizarre, strange, odd little movie this was.
It's not often you get to see the Joker, King Bobby B, Wash, Vision, that one dude from HBO's Rome miniseries and a woman whose mouth is so wide it's like her teeth are a zipper for removing the top of her head gallivanting about a Renaissance Faire to the pounding beat of AC/DC. Where "We Will Rock You" isn't just the soundtrack, we have peasants clapping out the beat, where heralds announce their knights like hypemen at the boxing ring, where Heath Ledger in his prime shimmies to Bowie at a medieval ball.
It's camp, it's cheese, in that beautiful window of time when medieval movies were pure campy cheese. Look what came before: Conan the Destroyer (1984) The Princess Bride (1987), Dragonheart (1996) the Dungeons and Dragons movie (2000).
Then, bam. Fellowship of the Ring. 2001.
And suddenly medieval fantasy was serious business. Beowulf, The Golden Compass, 2007. Game of Thrones, 2011. Warcraft, 2016. All deadly serious. And it keeps going, Wheel of Time. Lord of the Rings series on Amazon.
"You couldn't make that movie these days" is a common refrain, and they're probably right here, but not because of politics or Heath Ledger being undeniably dead, but because LotR and Harry Potter and Marvel and all that lot have drained all the goofiness out of fantasy.
Whereas this movie is completely bonkers and it knows it:
What are the rules of jousting? Inconsistent!
How do you win a tournament? Unclear!
We emphasized how good a swordsman the main character is, how does this come into play later in the story? Not at all!
Why do the two leads fall in love? Because they're the leads!
Who is the female lead anyway? Doesn't matter!
No, but seriously, shouldn't we know more about her than just her name? Shut up already!
But the girl was destined for an arranged marriage with the bad guy, winning a tournament won't change that, will it? Sorry, the movie's over!
Why does the lead's main motivation suddenly shift to making his dad proud in the third act? Because!
It's like a time capsule, a little snapshot of the before times, and all the more precious for it.
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