Black Knight Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)November 20th, 2001
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If your kids are good, take 'em to Harry Potter. If they misbehave, make 'em watch Black Knight. Or at least threaten to - they'll shape up right away. Knight is as original as a fart and nowhere near as funny. Imagine an Ebonics-spewing Carrot Top and you're still nowhere near the level of bad demonstrated here. It's sub-Jerry Lewis shit that just might be awful enough to ruin the Thanksgiving of people who don't even see it.
The horrendously untalented Martin Lawrence (What's the Worst That Could Happen?) plays Jamal Walker, the suckiest employee at a crappy amusement park called Medieval World. Somehow, through a rather confusing portal in the park's moat, Jamal is teleported to 1328 England but is too dumb to realize the setting is any different. The Brits think he's a Moor from France (he says he's from Normandy, referring to his street back in the hizood) and are charmed by his strange use of the language and his weird clothing, like the green jersey with big 23 (reflecting, no doubt, his staggering IQ).
There's some nonsense about a queen (Daniella Alonso) in exile who has been unjustly deposed by an evil king (Kevin Conway), and there's even a Nubian chambermaid (Marsha Thomason) for Jamal to woo, but worst of all is a drunk, homeless ex-knight named Knolte, who is played by Shakespeare in Love's Tom Wilkinson. Isn't there some kind of relief fund we can set up for decent actors to prevent them from stooping to lows like this? "For just 34 cents a day, you can support your very own actor, who will personally correspond with you each and every month."
Lawrence's salary for Knight was reportedly $16.5 million, which means there wasn't enough money left in the budget for things like decent opening credits and a script. It's painfully clear how little was put into the film during the opening scene where Jamal drives from his ghetto home to work, as the whole thing was filmed with a blue screen. It's probably because the movie was shot entirely in North Carolina, which is as close as Lawrence gets to South Central these days.
When you see Lawrence's name on the marquee, you shouldn't expect Oscar-caliber stuff, but after getting a glance at the words "screenplay by Darryl J. Quarles," you may just want to head for the hills. The classically trained Quarles, who was also responsible for Big Momma's House, could have done something (anything!) interesting, like transporting the shucking and jiving character into the Deep South in the '60s, but instead it almost seems like they made things up as they went along. In addition to the disappointment of seeing Wilkinson involved with this stinker is learning it was directed by Gil Junger, the television sitcom director who made a decent debut with 10 Things I Hate About You two years ago. Uh-oh - looks like it's back to television for you!
1:44 - PG-13 for language, sexual/crude humor and battle violence
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