Black Knight (2001)

Martin proved the three stikes your out rule with this horrid film
There once was a comedian named Martin Lawerence who had a string of flops begining in the year 1999 with the piece of rubbish Blue Streak. He struck out again with What's The Worst That Could Happen and in 2001 he made Black Knight. Black Knight is full of bad acting, cliched jokes and it's boring. Martin made another stinker later in the year called National Security and wouldn't reedem himself until Bad Boys 2 in the sunmmer of 2003. It should be noted that Chris Tucker wisely turned down the lead role.

It's Martin Lawrence going medeival.
The one thing that makes time travel movies so fascinating is how they show the cultural differences between the time traveler and the era traveled to. Throwing a Nike-wearing urbanite into medieval times might sound a bit out of place, but you do get some fun scenes. Unfortunately if it's not done the right way and the scenes that are supposed to be funny get tiresome. That is what this movie suffers from more than anything else.

Okay. You can't really expect much from a time traveling movie with Martin Lawrence in it. A Martin Lawrence comedy, no matter what genre they make it, is going to be pretty much the same. Black Knight does have some good qualities to it, but they get drowned out by... well... Martin Lawrence doing what he does in just about every comedy he's made. In other words it's funny the first few times, but how many times can you see this guy freak out over some predicament? It gets old really fast. The worst part about it is the other parts of the movie actually get interesting and you can see a lot of potential here, but then Martin starts up with his usual shtick and ruins the moment. Martin really needed to branch this character out more.

As far as making everything look and feel like a real 13th century kingdom they did a pretty decent job of it. I wouldn't go so far as to say it rivals the authenticity of movies like Dragonslayer or Lord of the Rings, but I would call it a good shot for a movie with a modest budget. That is until you start getting the music in. These people need to do their research on those long trumpets because they certainly didn't sound right. Also there is a scene where Martin Lawrence gets the local minstrels to play some Motown which ended up being not only unbelievable but just plain silly (and not in a good way). Yeah I know... Martin Lawrence and all that.

To be fair the plot and back-stories were solid. There were a couple of bumps here and there, but good enough nonetheless. I really did like how the whole movie came together in the end. You also get some good performances from Kevin Conway and Vincent Regan. Marsha Thomason does surprisingly well in spite of looking out of place in medieval England. Her performance definitely makes up for that. Martin is Martin so I can't say he really made a stretch in his performance.

Black Knight is mostly just for people who like the comedy style of Martin Lawrence. If his style gets on your nerves then you might want to shy away from this one. Still it's an okay movie if you can get past Lawrence's annoying recurring fish-out-of-water theme. Just don't expect Braveheart.

Better than most think it is.
Most People would brush-off the concept of the movie, but it's funny in most parts. The Football scenes are a trip to watch. The ballroom scene also makes me laugh when i think about it. Martin's facial expressions in this movie will have you laughing throughout the movie. 5 stars from me.