Black Knight (2001)
Film:
DVD:

Written by Peter Gaulke, Darryl J. Quarles & Gerry Swallow
Directed by Gil Junger
Starring Martin Lawrence, Tom Wilkinson, Marsha Thomason, Kevin Conway, Vincent Regan

Features:

• Running audio commentary by director Junger
  
• Two scenes include video commentary by Lawrence
  
• Three deleted scenes with optional commentary by Junger
  
• Outtakes
  
• Featurettes on: the friendship between characters Knolte and Jamal; stunts; set construction; choreography
  
• Two storyboard-to-scene comparisons
  
• Theatrical trailers
  
• Trailers for Unfaithful and Minority Report
  

Anamorphic: Yup.

My Advice: Avoid It.

Jamal (Lawrence) is a would-be player who spends his time working at the theme park Medieval World and thinking about himself. You can tell that he's a pretty selfish guy because this is Established with orange flashing lights that identify it as an Important Theme for the film. When another medieval park is about to open nearby with the capacity to blow Medieval World off the map, Jamal wants to figure out how to turn this to his advantage. First, though, he has to clean the moat. In doing so, he finds a strange amulet in the water and falls in. When he resurfaces, he's in England in the Middle Ages. He runs into a drunk knight named Knolte (Wilkinson), a beautiful servant of the court (Thomason), and a plot against a tyrant (Conway).

Martin Lawrence is a funny guy. I know. I've seen him funny. Gil Junger, too, is a capable director. His 10 Things I Hate About You was a highschoolized Taming of the Shrew that managed to not only not-suck but be charming. You'd think that they could have pulled something off that was worth watching. Ah...no. I don't necessarily blame either of them--I do blame the writers, though. The script seems to be comprised of a very flimsy premise--and that's all: Martin Lawrence in medieval England. Let's just throw this stuff at Martin and see what he does. In fact, Martin barely seems scripted at all--he appears to be improv-ing his way through all of his scenes, and doing it poorly. Because most of the scenes are so free form, when there is a bit that's supposed to Move The Plot, it comes off like a ton of bricks. This goes for everything, whether it's Lawrence's relation with the slumming Wilkinson, the weak romance with the servant girl, or the Obvious Setup of the legend of the Black Knight.

Wow. That's a lot of Capitalized Terms. Well, no one could accuse me of being subtle.

Anyway, one thing that Fox definitely knows how to do is a stack a disc. This flick is no exception. The commentary by Junger is mildly amusing, as he cracks jokes about his dancing skills and whatnot--all of which are funnier than the film itself. There's also a video commentary with Lawrence commenting on two scenes with picture-in-picture. What's amazing is that Lawrence uses so many "um's" and "you know's" that I feel so much better about my performance each week on Widge Goes Off. Not much information is there, even amongst the voice tics.

Next, you have a slew of featurettes. Of the four, only the one concerning stunts and construction was mildly interesting. The construction one because they actually give a tour of the sets used and discuss how they were made, which actually imparts some information. And the stunts one because, you guessed it, it actually gave information about how they pulled things off--and featured the stunt guy, which is always interesting.

With most outtakes, you get either one of two reactions: "Why did they take that out?" or "Oh. Yeah, glad they left that out." With the three that are included here, the reaction is one of odd ambivalence. This seems to be the case with Junger's commentary as well, since only for one of them does he outline why it didn't make final cut. The storyboard-to-scene comparisons are also quite bland.

In short, the film is really not worth your time. The DVD, although stacked with features, fails to really excite, but gets points for exerting a great deal of effort. Perhaps Martin Lawrence completists would want to grab this thing for their collections, but the rest of us should give it a wide berth.