Though I don't think I ever saw a trailer or commercial for it, I knew going in that at some point during A Knight's Tale, there would be a scene of jousting set to the tune of Queen's ubiquitous stadium anthem, "We Will Rock You." That scene comes during the opening credits, and is, in its way, kind of funny for about a second. Several minutes of boom-boom-CLAP, boom-boom-CLAP later, and it's murder. Pantomimed by hundreds of costumed extras, and cut in time to the impact of lance splintering against armor (the film's central recurring image), the song affects a kind of half joke, half extreme sports adrenaline-pumper. Director Brian Helgeland asks a lot of that half joke, milking it for what seems like the entire length of the song--which, in truth, no one ever needs to actually hear again--until every conceivable laugh has been wrung clean. And in case you didn't get it, he repeats it several times throughout the film's ungodly length (132 minutes!), the only variation being the song itself; Queen gives way to Thin Lizzy, BTO, and Bowie--a veritable greatest hits of ballpark favorites.

Unfortunately, it's not really such a funny joke, and the constant repetition only serves to remind you that you're watching a modernization of a genre whose only appeal lies in its anachronism. The tropes of honor, sportsmanship, and nobility (none of which have much to do with the meretricious world of contemporary sports that Helgeland echoes visually) are the bearings on the knight movie coat of arms. To spruce them up with a modern soundtrack (well, kind of modern) is hardly a reinvention. It's just a cute contrivance, unsuccessfully masking the deep hollow that lies at the heart of this club-footed attempt to foist a Teen Gladiator on historically-malnourished summer audiences.

All that isn't so surprising, and historical accuracy isn't a valid benchmark in the realm of popular cinema (see sidebar, nonetheless). Still, the things you go see a movie like this for--rousing action and star power--are curiously absent (for all Heath Ledger's handsome Australianness, he's no Russell Crowe, senator). It's not that A Knight's Tale sucks, particularly (though it pretty much does). It's just that, like, where are the cheap thrills?

Grading History's Rewrite

by Professor Emerita Melody Moss, M.A., A.B.D.

We historians generally don't condemn a filmmaker for taking creative license with anachronisms as long as the movie is good. But let's face it: A Knight's Tale is no Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Lest this stinking abomination of a film lead hundreds of students to think Geoffrey Chaucer was a naked gambler who forged documents for money, here is a brief list of the film's more egregious historical errors:

· There was no such thing as the "World Championships" of jousting in London--jousts were held in the countryside, not in densely populated cities.

· Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" is set in ancient Athens.

· Dreadlocks, mullets, neon hair dye, mousse, curlers, whitened teeth, glittery face paint, and see-through Chinese silk dresses did not exist in medieval Europe.

· Jocelyn, the dark and gaunt object of male desire, hardly fits the medieval ideal of feminine beauty: She would have had plucked and lightened eyebrows and eyelashes, extremely pale and powdered skin, and a round, protruding belly.

· In medieval literature, we wouldn't get a cheery ending. Medieval romance was all about pain--the kind that never ends (just like the length of this film).

· These were not "Golden Years," as suggested by David Bowie's song on the soundtrack; these were peak years of the bubonic plague.

· Modern colloquialisms like "Allllll RIGHT!" and "YeeEESS!!" (accompanied by upturned thumbs and fist-pumping) were unknown in Middle English.

· A female blacksmith?! Even a widow wouldn't have done such work, especially not while sporting long hair and a low-cut dress.

· Edward the Black Prince would not have shown mercy to a peasant; he was infamous for his cruelty--most notably the slaughter of the entire population of Limoges, France.

· Tournaments were for the aristocracy. Peasants did not attend jousts like modern-day soccer fans.

· Duels were not held in WWF-style rings, and heralds did not announce combatants à la Ed (or Vince) McMahon.

· Most regrettably, the whole premise of the film is faulty: Squires were members of the lower nobility, not peasants. No thatcher's son would be familiar with armor and sword, let alone know how to ride a horse.

· Queen's "We Will Rock You" was written half a millennium later.