![]() ![]() (Like much of the soundtrack, this recalls "Excalibur," John Boorman's 1981 gothic version of the same legend.) And the rebel knight Malagant, played with villainous relish by Ben Cross, makes his stand on a slate mountain, black and glittering.īut: The plot seems to have been worked out backward. ![]() A night battle is lit by moonlight, so that the armored forces rushing together shine and scuttle like a plague of locusts. The film is frequently gorgeous: Arthur and his knights are first glimpsed at night, in a velvety black-and-blue torchlight parade into the celestial Camelot. Connery is the perfect Arthur/Richard the Lion-Hearted/Robin Hood because he manages to convey that these heroes recognize their idealism as a form of boyishness, and he invests them with a bit of self-deprecation and a trace of stubbornness. As Guinevere, Julia Ormond has much the same role as she had in "Legends of the Fall," all long wavy hair, flowing costumes and wordless, endless brimming-eyed betrayal-but at least this time she has a horse worthy of a queen.Īs Arthur, of course, Sean Connery is irresistible. Guinevere is first seen playing soccer with her court, which gives some credence to her later, fitful, flashes of martial ardor. It's when he develops a moral dilemma that he starts to strain. Even when he says to Guinevere, whom he has just rescued in fine chivalric fashion, "I know when a woman wants me," his conceit seems a plausible part of the role. He doesn't bother straining for an accent (almost nobody does). He looks fairly comfortable with a sword. As the itinerant Lancelot, who lives by his wits and knows just what they're worth, Gere is disarmingly-in both senses-relaxed. There are portions of the movie that are likable enough, particularly the first half-hour or so. Zucker demeans the obliging Sir John Gielgud (as Guinevere's aged adviser Oswald) by robing and bearding him into a dead ringer for Obi-Wan Kenobi he undercuts the increasingly uncomfortable Richard Gere by showing him racing into battle, teeth gritted in slow-mo intensity, to the sound of his horse wheezing he even gives Gere recycled yippie speeches about personal freedom and a childhood trauma to explain it. Either that, or his critical faculties are on suspension. Zucker started out as part of the "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" team, and he just can't break the cheap-joke habit. Which is director Jerry Zucker's fault, because if the 30 most egregious minutes had been edited out, "First Knight" would have been, well, a lot better. ![]() There's swordplay to the hilt, but the story itself never quite gets in Gere. If the title of the latest Camelot recasting makes you wince, it's a fair omen: "First Knight" lurches between swashbuckling spectacular and Idyll soap opera. Children under 13 should be accompanied by a parent ![]()
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