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The Grre Knight Review


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The Green Knight

A24

R                125 min

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are among my favorite movie genres. And there aren't that many of them these days. So, like Superman or James Bond or Robin Hood movies I'm pissed off with a bad one comes along because it means I have to wait at least a year or two to roll the dice on a decent one. Last time was that horrible Charlie Hunnam flick.

Let me tell your friends the GREEN KNIGHT is a long way from what I expected. Think back to Senior English when the writings of William Shakespeare seemed hard to understand given today's version of the English language and modern sensibilities. In my college theater classes I thought Shakespeare was valuable to study not because the language was easily understood but because it forced us to be able to communicate almost in a foreign language. Of course Shakespeare was 17th century. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Gawain and the Green Knight were written nearly 300 years earlier. Even though the language has been updated in this screen version the strange style of 14th century literature is still there. In all honesty besides the basic premise, the story didn't make a lot of sense to me.

From other legends of King Arthur I was aware of the duel between Lancelot and Gawain as Mordred had planned to expose Lancelot and Guinevere as lovers in his plot to take the throne from Arthur. Gawain will be mortally wounded during that duel so no matter what happens at the end of this particular story, it's up to speculation.

The ancient Welsh poem tells of the Green Knight a monstrous creature who visiting the Christmas feast at Camelot and issues this challenge: Whoever volunteers to be Arthur's champion will be allowed to strike his best blow against the Green Knight. If he is not killed that champion will return to the Green Chapel in one year and receive the best blow the Green Knight has to offer. This story is about the 1-year journey to that duel and the fantastic things that happened to Gawain along the way tempting him to stray from his obligation. As for myself I couldn't get next to the sensibilities of the 14th century writing nor to the strange circumstances that happened along the way. Also because of the accents and the fact that much of the dialogue was spoken in whispers it was almost impossible to hear clearly, even with one of those personal amplification devices. On the other hand, though I struggled with the story and the sound I had to respect that someone took the time to be as faithful to the centuries-old narrative as they did. I give this one a B+ for moxie and C- for entertainment value.

C

WSS

 

 

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Good write up.

Have you ever seen the show Merlin? It was a BBC show that made its way to the SciFi network here in the states, and its about a young Prince Arthur when he first meets Merlin. There’s 5 seasons, the last of which aired around 10 years ago and last l checked it’s on Netflix.

Anyway, l really enjoyed it. The special effects are a little subpar but the dialogue and interplay between Arthur and Merlin are great, and the plot and pacing of the show is quite good too.

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The Green Knight would be an interesting story to watch - if they had it here where I live in theaters.

Maybe they did and I wasnt aware of it but mostly because of my partner movie goer (my wife) 

would make the pick to see it. 

Anyways - a few weeks back, she did pick another similar genre film "The Last Duel"  set in France and a *true story also. 

As usual, and not expecting it to grab my attention, this story did and was very good.

But I like your take and write-ups and was wondering if you might see & review it? 

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25 minutes ago, FairHooker11 said:

The Green Knight would be an interesting story to watch - if they had it here where I live in theaters.

Maybe they did and I wasnt aware of it but mostly because of my partner movie goer (my wife) 

would make the pick to see it. 

Anyways - a few weeks back, she did pick another similar genre film "The Last Duel"  set in France and a *true story also. 

As usual, and not expecting it to grab my attention, this story did and was very good.

But I like your take and write-ups and was wondering if you might see & review it? 

 Probably not it seems like overkill after the green night. But I'm with you a movie loses a lot if you watch it on the TV screen.

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