tomgillespie2002 There is a line from Alexander Payne's 2004 masterpiece Sideways, in which Paul Giamatti's lonely and depressed Miles describes his lack of purpose in the world as feeling like "a smudge of excrement on a tissue, surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage," that has always stuck with me. It's a beautiful, poetic line he attributes to the work of Charles Bukowski, although I don't think it was, which perfectly encapsulates his feelings of emptiness. During my viewing of Black Knight, it occurred to me that this line also sums up the cinematic career of Martin Lawrence, black stereotype extraordinaire.His belief-beggaringly successful TV career made graduated into movies in the late 1990's, and cinema was forced to endure his mixture of prat-falling and tough-guy gun-totin', to which he was convincing at neither. But perhaps I'm being unfair to Lawrence as, after all, Black Knight was written, financed, cast, produced and directed by a whole host of people. all of whom should hang their heads in shame. It is a generic time-travel, culture-clash story in which theme-park layabout Jamal (Lawrence) is transported back to Medieval England, where he faces a corrupt king (Kevin Conway) and his douchebag enforcer (Vincent Regan).Never mind the complete disregard for anything resembling historical accuracy, offensively stereotypical black characters, the dirt-cheap production design, and the baffling sight of Tom Wilkinson (who, to quote my step-dad, must have been short of a few bob), it's the comedy void that we are thrown head first into that makes Black Knight a truly torturous experience. Clearly the writers think that a shout of "holler!" or the sight of a bunch of white people trying to dance is an acceptable substitute for comedy. An unforgivable experience.

Steve Pulaski A loud-mouth urbanite (Martin Lawrence), who is a maintenance worker at a medieval theme park sees a shiny medallion in the park's mote, reaches for it, falls into the water, and is transported to 14th Century England where he must join the rebels and overthrow the corrupt king while getting the girl of his dreams.This is the premise for Black Knight, a comedy that is just as loud and annoying as its lead character. The film's flaws can be attributed to a remarkably cliché and tired script that somehow took a trio of writers to formulate, but a decent amount of the blame can be put on Martin Lawrence in addition. We've seen actors liven up stale material in the past, but here, Lawrence seems to quiver under the blatant asinine qualities of the film's script, resorting to almost infantile behavior - shouting, running around, and acting like a child. Consider the opening scene, which is a close-up of Lawrence's face as he obnoxiously brushes his teeth and flosses in the mirror, while dancing around his bathroom. I see this as only a desperate attempt at character development.However, Black Knight shoots for the stars, and while it falls vastly short of its goal, it managed to get me to laugh a few times. However, they were mostly towards the beginning, when Lawrence was first transported to the 14th Century. The idea of this loud-mouth buffoon adjusting to the life of centuries past sounds cute enough, and at first, Lawrence's outbursts and quirky comments are actually kind of funny. However, as the film goes on, Lawrence's face transcends to almost disbelief, as if he realized that this project is doomed financially and comically.The issue comes from the humor, which is entirely predicated off of the fish-out-of-water cliché of a character being taken out of his typical environment (in this case, the South Central hood) and placed somewhere entirely different either by choice or accident (14th Century England here). The film's formula goes as followed: cherrypick elements from the time period such as executions, the lack of plumbing, and knights and warriors riding horseback and throw Lawrence's sassy urban character into them and have him either shout random one-liners or bouts of disgust while taking part in them.The film mercilessly plods along at ninety-five minutes, exhausting every possible plot-device and event possible in the story. This may, however, be a good thing because it maybe means that I won't have to sit through another film quite like this for a very long time.Starring: Martin Lawrence, Marsha Thomason, Tom Wilkinson, and Kevin Conway. Directed by: Gil Junger.

Jackson Booth-Millard After seeing Big Momma's House and of course Bad Boys, I was keen to see quite a few of the black leading actor's films, even the ones that are not highly rated by the critics, but this one sounded worth a go at least. Basically at Castle World, the shabby and low profit medieval themed amusement park, is low level worker Jamal Walker (Martin Lawrence), who is magically transported back to England in the 14th Century by a special medallion in the moat. He explores the woods and eventually the kingdom, he believes for a while that everyone around him is acting like they are in the medieval times, even after seeing the old way of using the toilet, a beheading confirms the time he is in though. While there, Jamal is mistaken as a messenger from Normandy, and trying to fit in as best as he can, i.e. getting on with King Leo (Kevin Conway) and all the other people around him, of course his modern day ghetto attitude doesn't always fit. He also has many encounters with the beautiful Victoria the Chambermaid (The Haunted Mansion's Marsha Thomason), who reveals there is a plot to kill the king, she is part of it, because he has been hated by many people for quite some time. Jamal, claiming himself as both a messenger and a jester, and donning the name "Sir Skywalker", has also gained an enemy with the mean Sir Percival, Leo's Chief Henchman (Vincent Regan). There is a legend of the Black Knight, it may in fact be Jamal who that legend refers too, as he does gain bravery to get Victoria and Sir Knolte of Marlborough (Tom Wilkinson) on side to make armour and go against the bad guys and return the rightful Queen to the throne. Eventually Jamal decides it is best to return to the present day, via the way he came, he is sad to leave Victoria behind, but he may have in fact found her again with modern reincarnation Nicole (still Thomason), before falling back in the moat again and transported into a Gliator themed arena. Also starring Jeannette Weegar as Princess Regina - Leo's Daughter, Daryl Mitchell as Steve and Michael Burgess as Ernie. Lawrence with his cheeky-chappy persona is quite funny most of the time in this film, and the modern day mixing with the olden days format is amusing in many moments, so it's a reasonable comedy. Okay!

view_and_review "Black Knight" can be chalked up as a small blip upon the radar screen that is Martin Lawrence's career. Alright, lets be honest, it is one of many small blips that in essence make up Martin Lawrence's career. Don't get me wrong, it's not like Martin hasn't done any good stuff e.g. Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Big Mamma's House, and his sitcom. But primarily its been just one unsuccessful movie after another. "Black Knight" wasn't particularly funny and the plot not that particularly intriguing. I did watch the movie from beginning to end like a mindless drone, even though I could find nothing of value to legitimize my watching.