A Knight’s Tale (Blu-ray/Theatrical Cut)
Picture:
B- Sound: B Extras: D Film: C
There was
a time when by his own admission, Heath Ledger would sign up for any film and
take any role, no mater how stupid or idiotic.
Yes, some of the comedy would be intended, but he always had this knack
for doing things funny in a way not even he was aware of. Brokeback
Mountain may have put an end to that, but the legacy of lunacy will be
forever preserved on DVD and the new HD formats. One of his most interesting laugh-fests is
Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale
(2001), a film the director also wrote and produced. It is the simple tale of how a peasant
(Ledger) becomes an ace jouster on horses pretending to be his boss and
jousting champion Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell as the bad guy again). In what would usually be a formula film, we
get more humor than usual and lots of rock music.
This
includes hit songs by Queen and then there are the jousts, which seem to have a
joy intended as if they were setting up new train wrecks over and over and over
again. It just gets sillier and sillier,
which means you’ll either keep watching or turn it off. Enough have kept watching to keep it in
print, so there you go. Mark Addy (who
once played Fred Flintstone, but is best known for the great Full Monty), Christopher Cazenove, Alan
Tudyk, Shannyn Sossmon and Laura Fisher are among the surprisingly good cast
who also keep this from being a total disaster.
That would make it a guilty pleasure for some, but I think others just
like seeing horses clash to Rock music.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot in Super 35mm by Richard
Greatrex and it is lit well and has some good color, but the picture here is
suffering from detail troubles some of the early Sony Blu-ray discs did, if not
as noisy as (unreviewed) XXX and The Fifth Element suffered. The trick is making a film look good in HD
when only having 25 Gigabits, but we know this will get issued later in a 50GB
version because this does not include the longer director’s cut. One thing that may have happened is that Sony
is using al the HD transfers for their popular audiophile and videophile basic
DVD Superbit series and some of them are just not 100% solid. S.W.A.T.
Blu-ray (reviewed elsewhere on this site) was fine, but between compression and
quickly dating technology, maybe those transfers have also dated a bit.
The PCM
5.1 16bit/48kHz sound mix is pretty good and the best option here, with the
best previous sound version being the DTS 5.1 tracks on the basic Superbit DVD
edition. The film loves sporting hit
records created centuries after the time the film takes place and this is
hammered further by the original 8-channel SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound; a
movie theater-only format) original theatrical mix. In either case, it has to be folded down to
from 7.1 (five speakers would be behind the screen in theaters) to those mixes,
but both are decent. Of course, the problem
is that the music is the sonic highlight, while the rest of the film cannot
measure up. Carter Burwell’s score is
has its touches of Korngold and corny, but is serviceable, though far from his
best work.
As a
result of all the space needed for performance like the previous basic Superbit
DVD, there are no extras, but Ledger and Queen fans will be somewhat happy for
now. With Ledger becoming The Joker in
the next Batman film, this film will continue to attract new viewers, no matter
how wacky. Batman fans should note
would-be Joker Paul Bettany co-stars with Ledger here and helps the film
further. If you have not seen it, check
it out once just for the madness of it all.
- Nicholas Sheffo
