Film Reviews

Black Knight

• Director:
• Starring: Daryl Mitchell
• Details: US / 90 mins / (12PG).

There are many things that you can say about the new Martin Lawrence 'comedy', Black Knight. Sadly, the words 'good', 'enjoyable' or 'funny' are not among them. Indeed, given the choice, I'd prefer to have my toenails removed by a chainsaw rather than sit through this unholy mess of a film again. In this puerile, childish riff on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (hardly a masterpiece itself), Lawrence plays Jamal Walker, a worker at dodgy theme park, Medieval World. After he falls into the castle's filthy moat, Jamal is transported back to England in 1328 (go figure). Understandably put out by this development, Walker flounders about for a while, before becoming King Leo's (Conway) jester. More problems arise when Jamal falls for Victoria (Thomason), a feisty young chambermaid, who has also attracted the attentions of Percival (Regan). Will the prissy little aristocrat and the racially-fixated jester duke it out for the affections of the foxy little maiden? Course they will. A hideously contrived, predictable affair, Black Knight's flimsy premise runs out of steam minutes after the opening credits roll. What people have ever seen in Lawrence's second hand shtick beggars belief, but he descends to whole new levels of idiocy here. Words fail me.

Review by Garreth Murphy