The characters are fairly well presented, except, in fact, the knight of said tale, who sticks out like a sore thumb.In the middle of working class midland dialects, he is meant to be a cockney from 14th century cheapside London, but has an upper-class accent the BBC would be proud of. Apart from that, the rest are interesting enough to keep you watching, and the novelty of have the one and only Geoffry Chaucer displayed as a spiteful, lying, cheat is amusing enough.
The aforementioned midlanders (as well as Chaucer) are just great as comedy relief, and give the film the added liveliness to justify its running time of 135 minutes.
The non-comedic love-interest bits in between fights are just plain irritating and forced sounding, and you often find yourself screaming "GET ON WITH IT!!!", begging for someone to die in a hurry. His arch-nemesis, Count Evil the Evilist Evil person ever to be Evil, or something, is just too exaggerated to be believable, but thankfully, he doesn't have enough of a part to play in the film to affect it too much.
There are, as in any half-humourous film about the past, references to current affairs, presented in a "hey look, its a medieval crowd singing We Will Rock You! Ain't that crazy??" sort of a way, and is, sometimes, very cleverly done. Unfortunately, a lot of it is as subtle as a troupe of clog-dancing hippos.
Heath Ledger
Paul Bettany
Rufus Sewell
Mark Addy
Alan Tudyk
Shannyn Sossaman
Laura Frasier
William Thatcher, peasant, along with two other squires whose names I've forgotten, are on the verge of winning some money in a jousting tournament. However their knight has just died in his own, shit-filled armour. A replacement is needed if they are going to win some lunch. Will enters instead.
Afterwards, he decides, rather than go home, he should become a pro jouster. On the way he meets one Geoff Chaucer ("Chaucer's the name, writing's the game" ho ho), who forges the documents he needs to joust. He also meets the lovely Lady Jocelyn, who I swear must be related to Angelina Jolie. The Evil arch-nemesis role is filled by Count Aragon or something like that, who dislikes him greatly. Because he's evil. And wouldn't you know who the final showdown is against? Hmmmm, toughie. Anyway, you can pretty much guess what else happens, and they all live happily ever after. .
Verdict - 3 DAVEs - Sure, it'll be forgotten in a years time, just make the most of it now.
