I haven't had a good rant in a while, and after seeing this exciting little anti-gem from Martin Lawrence's production team made way back in the halcyon days of 2001, I felt compelled to put pen to paper (metaphorically of course, my handwriting has the elegance and grace of a dying tuna fish). The problem is, that I am now once again aware of the human polyp known as Martin Lawrence. The film succeeded in remind me just how jaw-droppingly bad Martin Lawrence is as an actor, and how we are still falling for his screen 'charms' ten years later. Seriously, how have we all been so stupid? How are we keeping this man in work? How has he seduced us? Did he use some sort of international form of cinematic rohypnol? Surely nobody went to see this?
For a start, the title. I am assuming the pitch went like this:
MARTIN LAWRENCE: Okay guys, this will blow your minds. He's black, okay? Like me. And...he's a knight. So this guy is...a BLACK....KNIGHT. See?
EXECS: Will we make money?
MARTIN LAWRENCE: Yep.
EXECS: Damnit Martin, you're a genius.
Let us sum up the plot, what of it there is. Martin Lawrence plays the odious Jamal, a self-interested worker at a medieval theme park, who one day sees a necklace in a mock-moat near the entrance of said attraction where he works. Upon reaching in to claim said MacGuffin, it glows, sucks him into the moat and teleports him back to a strange version of England populated largely by English actors who appear to not know what film they are in, but gleefully seem to be picking up the cheque anyway.
When not grinning like a jackal, this is Martin Lawrence's default expression. It ain't pretty.
Jamal, for reasons best explained to nobody, is mistaken for a herald by the king and lives the life of Riley until it turns out all is not well in the kingdom, and he ends up joining the local resistance against...someone. For a film with such a breathtakingly simple plot, it manages to have plot-holes you could drive an entire armoured division through. The time-travel device he has is mentioned once and then never again, it has no bearing on the plot and every single plot contrivance is held up by the shakiest house-of-cards series of coincidences you could imagine. Example: he arrives at the built-by-Wickes castle, and announces he is from Normandy. You know, because its a district in LA, but they think he means the real Normandy, so they let him in! Massive pause for a laugh! Guffaw! Laugh out Loud! God, please, find the needle and thread because my sides have fucking split. Black Knight is basically lowest common denominator entertainment that is almost as bad, while not being as actively offensive, as White Chicks or Little Man. True, it contains a cornucopia of bizarre masturbatory fantasies in which Martin Lawrence is as usual the effortlessly charismatic stud that no woman can resist, but manages to avoid any overt racism. In this respect, it doesn't help that Martin Lawrence manages a thundering diarrhoeic whirlwind of a performance that just manages to soil every actor and scene in which this git appears. Here is how a scene with Martin Lawrence works:
Int. Castle. Night. VICTORIA waits by the bed. JAMAL walks in.
VICTORIA: Prithee my lord, tell me, will you join our rebellion? For the day grows late and my heart quickens so.
JAMAL: Dayuuuuuummmm, girrrl! You sure know how to get a brother goin'! Woooo!!!
JAMAL removes his pants.
Okay, you read that and you think I'm joking. Watch the film, and tell me that is not what he does in all of his scenes. It makes you nostalgic for Chris Tucker, he is that bad. He manages to embody every single hideous stereotype in the character of Jamal, who, as I have mentioned, is inexplicably a sex god to every woman he meets.
Janette Weegar: Cast in this film for two reasons. Guess what they are.
Especially of course to the King's daughter (pictured above) who has a tendency towards sex with everything that moves, and looks as if she is trying to birth a cactus when she is on screen. His love interest is Victoria, maid and secret rebellion leader who is what passes in Martin Lawrence's warped brain as a 'progressive' character, due to the fact she has more purpose than being a one-note joke about women being massive sluts. This might be okay if she was played well, but the actress playing Victoria apparently attended the Keanu Reeves college of performance and arts, and looks partly concussed for the film's running time. So yes, she is bland. Bland, bland, bland. Does anybody make it out of this fiasco unscathed? Well, Tom Wilkinson does almost, given that he went on to several nominations and a lot of better roles after this, but is made to wear sports shoes with armour, combining historical rape with shameless product placement so even his dignity ends up shredded like a duck in hoi-sin sauce.
In one of these photos is a legend. Guess which.
I think the thing that beggars belief most of all is not the rampant unfunniness of the script, the bored actors or even the horror that is Martin Lawrence attempting to act, it is just how shamelessly and utterly stupid the film is from start to finish. I know that comedies can flaunt the internal logic of a plot pretty spectacularly, but if the film isn't funny, you can't give it that excuse. The film tortures the plot thread of 'the king thinks Jamal is a very important visitor' utterly beyond breaking point, taking more than an hour for the bad guys to finally run him off. We are occasionally treated to Jamal kitting out his courtiers in basketball gear because hey, white medieval guys in ill fitting basketball uniforms is funny. Victoria comes into his room sometimes and urges him to join the rebellion, but then he carries on and on with his anti-hilarity until the plot finally wakes up. It is the sheer amount of time spent on us watching unfunny fish out of water hijinks that lead nowhere that makes this film a tedious and painful watch. Having said that, the return of 'the plot' isn't exactly the most welcome of sights in itself.
Oh dear god, will anyone make him stop?
There is a resistance consisting of three people and The QueenTM that of course leads Martin Lawrence into taking the kingdom back by force, and The film finishes with the usual palava; the girl goes back through time with him because it turns out she can't resist him, the rebellion is successful and everyone is happy except the audience who are weeping copiously into their food, begging for the end to come soon. Hilariously, the film ends with a teaser in Ancient Rome, suggesting that they were going for a bit of sequel bait which for reasons I cannot fathom, did not come to pass. Cue another boardroom meeting.
MARTIN LAWRENCE: Okay guys, this is Black Gladiator, a sequel. This will blow your minds. He's black, okay? Like me. And, get this, he's also...a gladiator.
EXECS: Seriously, get the fuck out, Martin.
I have tried in vain to work out how to actually finish this review, so instead of a summary, just think on this: Martin Lawrence is not only still in work, he is successful, and we have paid to see all of his films this far. Yes, we have. So I would suggest unless you really want to see Black Gladiator, then do not pay to see Big Momma's House 3. Or the above meeting described will actually have a positive outcome, and no quantity of dire warnings from the future to not meddle with the past will stop me going back to stop this from ever happening.
We got a world to save, Doc!
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