A true Knightmare

>> History meets high school in A Knight's Tale

by MATTHEW HAYS

The period film might seem an odd place for producers to delve into while poaching the teen demographic. After all, history might actually remind teens of history class, and thus school, and that could be off-putting.

But the folks behind A Knight's Tale have attempted a kind of reverse Clueless. That film took a classic Jane Austen novel (Emma) and updated it by setting it in contemporary Beverly Hills. A Knight's Tale takes contemporary music and dialogue and crams it into medieval times. The period mix doesn't really work in both directions, if this movie is any indication.

Tale is quite noteworthy in terms of its principal casting call. It stars none other than hottie-of-the-moment Heath Ledger, who also starred as Mel Gibson's son in The Patriot and who fills his armour quite well here. Publicists are understandably pushing him full-tilt to help bolster the film. They're also reprinting tracts of Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers's glowing review of the film. (He calls it "one cool summer movie!" and adds, "You won't be able to wipe the grin off your face!")

Someone must have blown Travers, and blown him good. The intentional anachronisms, which most glaringly operate through songs like Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Bowie's "Golden Years" playing during the film, elicited huge groans from the audience I sat through this with last week. The gags are clumsy and stupid, the good-vs.-evil and lower-class-vs.-upper-class themes are false and tacked-on and Ledger's jousting rivalry (with an evil type) feels like a dumbed-down Gladiator knockoff. (I know, I know, the idea that something as simple as Gladiator could actually be made simpler is astonishing, but here it is.)

Simply put, this is a bad movie which made for a bad time. The comic foils were irritating, the romantic plot line was as weak as they come (Ledger must intentionally lose to prove his love for his lass--horrors!) and the final credit roll provided the film's best moment: a phenomenal sense of relief.

A Knight's Tale opens Friday, May 11