First Knight was a very lucky film indeed.  When Mel Gibson’s Braveheart was released in May of 1995, moviegoers across the world were dumbstruck with its mixture of historical fact, creative license, brutal battle, tender love story and its grand epic scale.  While it would go on to win five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography, its first victory was reinvigorating audiences’ appetite for costume drama and fantasy adventures.  Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Fugitive, Schindler’s List and Unforgiven had been ruling the box office for the years previous, showing that quality filmmaking was prevalent in the early 1990s, but Braveheart’s success was so universal, that nearly any film with swords and shields was a guaranteed fan favorite…such as First Knight which was released later that year.  It is only now, with a clear head and fresh perspective that it is easier to see these following films for what they really were…and in the case of First Knight…that’s a huge ball of stinky cheese.

Based on the Arthurian legends, or more accurately the fabricated stories of Chretien de Troyes which were based on the original compilation of equally embellished tales of Le Morte d’Arthur, First Knight is retelling of the now famous love triangle between King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Lady Guinevere.  Arthur rules his lands and golden city of Camelot with fairness, benevolence, and a fierce sense of honor.  His one passion in life beyond the success of his idealistic kingdom is his love for the fair maiden Guinevere.  She is a ruler by her own right, overseeing the people of Leonesse, and trying desperately to protect them from the marauding armies of the evil Malegant.  Malegant has his own connection with Arthur, as he was formerly a knight of Arthur’s who sat at the fabled Round Table.  Now however, his hatred for Arthur knows no bounds and his only desire is to bring about the destruction of Camelot…a society he sees as being built upon weakness.

Lancelot lives by his sword, wandering from place to place and choosing to follow the flow of his fate rather to guide it himself.  He is a brilliant fighter but is also a man with a stronger heart that either his head or his sword arm.  When he crosses paths with Malegant’s men terrorizing Guinevere while on her way to be married to Arthur, he interferes and finds himself lost in the beautiful woman…so much so that he would defy this marriage of rulers to satiate his own desire.  When he meets Arthur and is welcomed into his inner circle as a trusted friend, the true trouble starts.  This romantic triangle will end as all others before and after it…with betrayal, pain and loss.

And while all that may sound like a tempting prospect, a movie you might want to see, the truth of the matter is that the whole affair is rife with eye-rolling dialog, mind-numbing battles, an un-masculine hero, an overacting king, a villain that is a parody of himself, some of the very worst costuming I have ever seen in a film, and a script filled with cliché lines, overdramatic moments and one of the weakest endings of a film I can recall.  There is only one thing keeping First Knight from becoming a shoe-in cult classic…the sort of film that drama kids would quote and rental shelves would be required to stock for those drunken party emergencies.  Its fans.

There are those who have no taste.  There are those who like nothing more than romance novels come to life on the screen.  There are those who remain faithful to certain actors, no matter what the quality (or lack thereof) they deliver in their roles.  But really, I believe it is the fact that we were all a little impressionable while on the intoxicating drug that was Braveheart that best explains away why some people actually enjoy this film because they believe it is good.  I am not the first, but let me now take the torch, and say that this film would be INTENSELY more enjoyable if viewed because of how bad it actually is.

Richard Gere should NOT be an action hero…ever.  There I said it.  It isn’t his ridiculous squinty smile.  It isn’t his complete lack of physical prowess.  Nor is it because every time he attempts to evoke any emotion, from anger to sheer happiness, he either looks like he is high on mushrooms or severely constipated.  It is because guys don’t like him.  That is why he usually portrays a romantic lead…then, you see, it doesn’t matter if men like him or not.  But he is hardly alone in making this the film it is.

Sean Connery steps into the velvety shoes of King Arthur, and to be quite honest, could have done a very good job at it.  In fact, there is emotion coming out of this actor in this film that you were never going to see in a hundred James Bond flicks.  But Connery was hung out to dry by the writers here, as they deftly molded the Arthur character into a total douche.  A love-sick little puppy, this Arthur is willing to sacrifice his ideals, his morals, and even his kingdom for the love of a woman.  While this might make sense BEFORE he finds out that she is in love with someone else (I enjoy grand gestures of romance and devotion along with everyone else), it certainly becomes painful when he continues to protest such things after he catches Guin and Lancelot expressing their love.

I don’t even want to get started on our bad guy, over-played by Ben Cross.  Suffice it to say, that if you took all the cliché lame things that the bullies at your grade school said and did to show how mean and powerful they were…they wouldn’t get close.  And it doesn’t help that he does all this looking completely ridiculous and more than a little like an escapee from Mad Max.  The costuming, as a whole, is one of the most distracting and horribly botched parts of the entire film.  I am not sure how or why they had spandex in King Arthur’s time, nor how everyone’s garments ended up looking like hooded sweatshirts…but the end result is that all the knights of the round table look like a Star Trek away team.

The over-use of the hand-crossbows was a nice touch…if this was a shoot-em-up movie.  The entire bad guy army uses these little things to shoot everyone with some seriously silver, futuristic bolts that would have been more fitting in a Blade film.  Dozens upon dozens of people are shot in the stomach, back, chest, arm or leg with these things by horse-mounted villains.  If these filmmakers wanted a Western…they should have made one…it is like the O.K. Corral at times!  And ever bolt that strikes, kills instantly….dead.  Much like the equally laugh out loud fight choreography, in which every touch of a sword kills instantly…without apparently the ability to even cut through the clothes.  The PG-13 rating of this film must have been held aloft like the ultimate ideals of Camelot, because I have never seen a sword film with so little violence, blood or even the basics of a medieval film.  AND, in a feat of workmanship, the fight choreographers have actually found a way to give Lancelot a “unique” fighting style that makes him more effeminate than he already is.

I have a long history of sword training myself, which is one of the things that attracts me to these films, and there is one group in particular which I have the utmost respect for, ARMA.  The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts represents the best students and scholars of Western martial arts of the 15^th to 17^th centuries.  While they (obviously!!) had nothing to do with the fight choreography in this film, there is an included featurette included on this Special Edition DVD that at least serves to shed some light on the very swordplay which First Knight mangles so badly.  This however, may be the only quality inclusion on this disc…including the feature and other bonus material.

First Knight could be seen as a hilarious misstep, a tongue-in-cheek over-the-top silliness, or even just a real stinker.  But until it is, it will never be riotously fun.  For now, it is stuck in the realm of bad movie which some people cling to out of memory.  If you are willing to buy a six-pack, invite over some friends, develop a drinking game and memorize some one-liners for use at work on Monday…then by all means this is a film for you.  If you are looking for a fun film you might have missed, or worse, are going back to this film after remembering it fondly, then you might as well skip this one all together.  Might I recommend Braveheart?  I heard that one is pretty good!