Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Star Knight (1985)

aka El caballero del dragon

When the peasants are terrorized by a dragon, they refuse to pay the local tax collector until the King gets rid of the menace. Klever, a knight played by Harvey Keitel, is all for fighting dragons or doing anything that will get him a better position and the hand of the Princess.  Unfortunately for him, the Princess thinks he's a dunce and the King isn't too fond of him either.

With no likely suitors and boredom setting in, the Princess slips outside the castle and past the bridge guarded by the Green Knight, who is right out of Monty Python.  When she goes for a swim in the lake, she's pulled under water by what her maid in waiting believes is a dragon.

While the kingdom mourns her passing, the King's alchemist, played by Klaus Kinski, investigates the disappearance and discovers that there is a spaceship in the lake and an alien has fallen in love with the Princess. Gak! That's right, the dragon is actually a spaceship.  Sounds pretty funny, but it's really boring.

I expected too much from the movie since Kinski and Keitel are in this.  I don't know if Keitel was just phoning this in, but this this performance would kill a lesser mans career.  Plus his New York accent sounds so awkward when using old English.

Since it's called Star Knight, you'd expect the title figure to show up prior to half way through the film and that this would have a huge impact.  But it doesn't and I kept drifting off since it didn't hold my interest.

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