Black Knight

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...

Black Knight
Fast-talking con-man Jamal Walker has big-time plans--but for now he's stuck in a menial job at a medieval theme park. After slipping into the park's fetid "moat," Jamal finds himself in 14th century England--a world of knights in shining armor, a wicked king and damsels in distress. The Middle Ages will never be the same after Jamal uses his 21st century street smarts and attitude to help a down-and-out knight and a beautiful woman defeat an evil king. Black Knight is extremely funny but slow on the on plot and not as much action as I thought. Martin Lawerence wasn't his best but he brought the laughs.

Better script would have helped.
The main idea of this Martin Lawrence vehicle had some potential. A black, young adult, under achiever with potential gets sent back to medieval times to learn a valuable lesson. Some of the bits are funny and Lawrence shows he has some talent, but there was nothing solid enough here that to make us feel that we wanted to watch it again, unless it came on TV with the language edited.

It could have even been done to be more family friendly, but it wasn't. This movie is at best AVERAGE or 2.5 stars. I'll round down to 2 stars for some language.

Click to Editorial Reviews