Justin and the Knights of Valour – Film Review
Director: Manuel Sicilia
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong, Antonio Banderas, Julie Walters, Rupert Everett and David Walliams
Release Date: Sep 13
It feels a little redundant to have to explain why this film gets the score it does if you have already seen the trailer, or even seen the poster. Generic trash aimed at kids are pretty common-place at the movies. They nestle snugly between slasher movies starring busty blondes and mindless action movies starring Jason Statham. Sometimes though, these trashy films can surprise us, and actually be well worth the watch despite early impressions. I’m sure anyone who saw Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted came out of it more than a little surprised.
Sadly, Justin and the Knights of Valour is not one of those films. It is exactly what it looks like. And worse.
We follow the all too familiar tale of Justin (Highmore), a young boy in medieval times who dreams of being a part of something bigger, of following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sir Ronan. Unfortunately, knights have been outlawed by his father, Reginald, and bureaucrats have taken their place. What follows is a well below average underdog story, with an empty romance tacked on for the sake of appearances and a wealth of non-jokes.
Justin is crippled from the very beginning due to a relentless onslaught of problems. For starters, the world which Justin explores is flat, lifeless and just plain uninteresting. You won’t have long to wait to see the trademark zig-zag path up a mountain, the well-worn trope of an abandoned castle and the obligatory rope bridge hanging precariously over a chasm. It has an air of Shrek about it, with the odd pop culture reference, even though it seems to be going for a slightly more serious tone. An early scene shows Justin entering a tavern, a legendary place of respite for knights, only to discover it has been turned into tourist trap, much like Planet Hollywood. In the hands of Dreamworks, this scene would have been bursting at the seams with subtle sight gags, easily a movie highlight. Yet, it just plays out, completely poe-faced, as if the concept alone is enough to sustain a 10-minute long gag.
This is the about the extent of the film’s wit, and it makes the paltry running time feel far longer than it actually is. Almost all other instances of humour resort to the age old gags of people falling down, people being smacked with a blunt object, and, of course, who could forget the timeless sketch in which a man makes a funny face and screams a lot? What is utterly bizarre is the fact that there is the odd pop culture reference, but they are so obscure that very few people, especially kids, will even be aware of them. Bjork’s swan dress, honestly? How many 12-year-olds will actually be able to see the funny side of that? The tone is similar to How to Train Your Dragon, but has none of the magic or charm.
Or consistency for that matter. Very little feels organic or logical, with developments happening because ‘they’re in the script’. Talia (Ronan) falls for Justin, not because there is any actual chemistry between them, but because that’s what she’s there for. The villain Heraclio (Strong) is ruthless because that’s what makes a good villain, not because his backstory makes him that way. And Justin’s training allows for him to become a true knight after what appears to be a single week. Not because he’s the chosen one, but because that’s exactly what happens in these films and we’ve all come to expect it. There is also an unspoken agreement that ‘Knight’ actually means ‘Shaolin monk’ because, apparently, knight training involves a lot of meditation and excessive study. So, aside from being grossly disengaging, it is also wildly inaccurate. It just keeps getting worse….
When it comes down to it, so much rests on the shoulders of the main character. How to Train Your Dragon wasn’t exactly a rib-tickler either, but the clumsy yet charming Hiccup was likable and very well developed. As such, he carried a lot of that movie. It seems strange, then, that Justin, who is clearly trying to ape that same style of character, misses the mark by so very much. He has an unusual lilt in his voice, that screams fresh-faced youngster, but it grates on the nerves like a handful of rusty staples. He is impossibly shallow, his one and only characteristic to be a ‘good guy’, which gets cripplingly boring once you realize that no further developments are on their way.
To make things worse (yes… it gets worse), there are a wide roster of other characters, probably perceived by the studio as ‘colourful’, but they range from the forgettable to the outright offensive. Among them is the narcissistic buffoon, Sir Clorex (Banderas), who also wants to become a knight, but for all the wrong reasons. He is reminiscent of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, but utterly lacking in charisma as he is painfully stupid, and the main offender when it comes to unfunny jokes. There is also Sota (Everett), Heraclio’s right hand man, who undergoes several personality changes throughout the film. He is at once a buffoon, a skilled acrobat, a brutish general and, bizarrely, a campy fashion guru, none of which properly gel together in a believable way.
Finally there is Melquiades, played by David Walliams, whose role in the film is among the most publicized in posters and trailers but who, oddly, is the least necessary to the overall plot. Like Clorex, he has any number of unfunny jokes, the majority of which revolve around his wholly irrelevant split personality disorder. Yet, it terms of actual functionality, he is barely needed at all, his only relevant action being the drawing of a map which could have been done by any of the other unnecessary characters. While he is among the less offensive of characters on this list, his utter pointlessness in the context of the film is nothing short of jaw-dropping.
It would be all too easy to go on and on, to list all the problems in each individual act, but this would be an unnecessary waste of time for both writer and readers alike. Justin and the Knights of Valour is a bad film that you should not go and see, not even for a joke. If your kids start crying because you won’t take them to see it, endure their wails. It is the lesser of two evils.
Score: 1/5
Written by Stephen Hill
