Bored on a scorching hot afternoon, having read the reviews and prepared myself for a horribly campy movie, off I went to see A Knight's Tale. I was braced for trite dialogue, laughably unrealistic costuming and characterization, and bizarre juxtapositions of medieval imagery and classic rock. All these I got, but since I was prepared for them I was able to look beyond them to a surprisingly agile plot and amusing characters.

A Knight's Tale follows William, a peasant squire who manages to impersonate a noble to enter jousting tournaments. Of course a villain appears, in the form of an opposing jouster who is William's rival for the heart of the (of course) beautiful woman. William manages to thread his way through the challenges of learning to joust, dance, talk to women, and cope with pithy insults, to the inevitable final crisis and battle.

So far so cliched; but A Knight's Tale actually manages to surprise you along the way. The plot makes sense, the characters are true to themselves, and they occasionally show a hint of a third dimension.

Now for the bad side: I wish I could argue that the lack of realism was irrelevant in what is essentially a fantasy story. Unfortunately, the anachronisms frequently just come off as wrong. The heroine wears multicolored hair extensions and clothes that look like they just came out of Gucci's studio, not a medieval palace; and seeing throngs of joust-watchers clapping the 2-1 beat to Queen's "We Will Rock You" made some part of my brain hurt. The banquet dance that metamorphoses into a boogie to David Bowie was almost done well, however; had the flashes of modernism been a more consistent theme, I think it could have worked.

A Knight's Tale gets 3 stars. Since I expected to only give it 1 or 2, that's actually pretty good. :) Whereas most movies these days seem to try to gloss over terrible stories with endless eye candy and superficial details, A Knight's Tale has a decent story beneath its scratched surface.

Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12