Editor's note: For lack of inspiration (read: anything interesting going on in my life at the moment), I figured I'd do some movie reviews. Over the summer, by occasionally taking advantage of MovieLink's daily "99 cents or less" special movie, I got to see some films that I otherwise would not have been inclined to watch. I figured I'd feature some of those movies first, starting with today's: First Knight.
I remember first seeing First Knight, Jerry Zucker's take on the Arthurian legend, on one of the plane flights that brought me back to the US in 1996. My memory of it was fairly positive, and through StreamingSoundtracks, I became a fan of its score (the choral sequence for the final battle, in particular, is spectacular). So I had good vibes when I saw it available on MovieLink.
The story, briefly: Lancelot (Richard Gere) is a likeable rogue swordsman whose courage catches the eye of King Arthur (Sean Connery) and his new bride, Guinevere (Julia Ormond). Arthur invites Lancelot to fill a vacancy among his Knights of the Round Table—a vacancy left, incidentally, by Prince Malagant (Ben Cross), who is generally being a nuisance, burning villages and such. Not surprisingly, a love triangle forms between Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere, and Malagant comes knocking when it's most inconvenient.
Man, is this an awfully mediocre movie.
The cinematography is pretty, if not breath-taking, with nice shots of, um, wherever it was filmed (which was no New Zealand). The fight sequences are downright laughable—I guess I've been spoiled by too much Lord of the Rings and kung fu movies. Avalon, Arthur's brilliant capital city, looks like a majestic jewel from a distance, but the sets within the castle walls are pretty poorly done.
The script bludgeons this film into bargain bin oblivion. Sometimes the dialogue literally had me wincing. There's very little subtlety and nuance, and this comes out in forgettable performances from Gere and Ormond. The script actually introduces some interesting theological elements, with Arthur and Malagant representing the opposing viewpoints, but it then proceeds to botch it with stilted dialogue that reads like an introductory philosophy text. The love triangle, central to the entire film, is a sloppily contrived quagmire. You can't help but feel bad for Sean Connery, who, along with Ben Cross, manages to pull a decent performance out of this mess.
In fact, Sean Connery is the only person who ever really seems to be in character, bringing a certain majesty and fatherly benevolence to the role of Arthur. I imagined him going back to his trailer between takes, shaking his head and wondering how he got talked into being a part of the project. Probably money. Lots of it.
Rating: 1 out of 4 stars.
Summary: Wow. 4/4 Stars.
The story is admittedly spare, serving merely as a frame for the stunning visuals—Hero is, after all, a martial arts flick. Nameless (Jet Li), recounts a series of stories to the King of Qin (Daoming Chen), a tyrant who seeks to unite China's warring states under his rule. We see the stories as narrated flashbacks. As the film progresses, the stories change as inconsistencies are discovered. With each retelling, the predominant color scheme of the film changes, providing visual cues to the mood and theme of each episode.
The episodes take full advantage of some of the most jaw-dropping locations ever filmed in China. The autumnal scene mentioned above was my favorite, filled with swirling reds and golds and falling leaves, but all of the flashbacks are stunning visually, and masterfully edited. Even in the most intense fight sequences, director Zhang Yimou cuts to slow-motion shots of raindrops, falling leaves, a calligrapher's brush. You're left with a keen sense of the passage of time and a world that moves on, unaware of the moment that you're watching.
