November
21, 2001 | The hero rises above his humble station by pretending
to be nobility, the heroine is a feminist several centuries before the
heyday of Gloria Steinem, the villain of the piece is a sneering knave
who thinks women (and upstart impostors) should be kept in their proper
places - and the soundtrack swells with an anachronistic pop tune as
the lead players cavort at a royal banquet.
But
enough talk of A Knight's Tale. Let's turn to this week's medieval
misadventure, an eerily similar trifle titled Black Knight.
The
latest - and, quite possibly, least - in a seemingly endless line of
movies loosely based on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court, this extremely mild comedy is a rattletrap star
vehicle for Martin Lawrence, who appears hell-bent on making us forget
the recent unpleasantness of What's the Worst That Could Happen?
Indeed, there is a borderline-desperate edge to his trademark shtick
- shucking and jiving, prancing and pratfalling, mugging and bugging
out - as Lawrence overplays Jamal Walker, a 21st-century homeboy who's
magically zapped back to Merrie Olde England of 1328.
Introducing
himself as "Sir Skywalker" to the conveniently credulous King
Leo (Kevin Conway) and other members of the royal court, Jamal pretends
to be the herald of a nobleman en route to marry the king's randy daughter.
He also claims to be a jester, backing his words with klutzy deeds that
provide a few modestly amusing moments of broad physical comedy.
For
much of Black Knight, Jamal comes across as a trash-talking version
of the belligerent coward that Bob Hope played in comedies of the '40s
and '50s. At first, the time-tripping homie is reluctant to join forces
with Victoria (Marsha Thomason), a beautiful Nubian handmaiden aligned
with revolutionaries who want to overthrow King Leo. But eventually
- inevitably, really - Jamal rises to the occasion, with a little help
from the brave Sir Knolte (Tom Wilkinson of The Full Monty and
Shakespeare in Love), a fallen-from-grace knight in need of a
shot at redemption.
Black
Knight isn't awful, strictly speaking, just tepid and predictable.
Director Gil Junger (10 Things I Hate About You) plays the fish-out-of-water
set-up for easy, obvious gags, the funniest of which can be viewed in
TV ads and coming-attraction trailers. The supporting players - including
Vincent Regan as a villainous knight who's semi-loyal to King Leo -
are competent and well-cast. But even the immensely talented Wilkinson
must recede into the background whenever Lawrence does his hyperactive
bit. If you like that sort of thing, well, this is the sort of movie
you might like.