El caballero del dragón

STAR KNIGHT (or THE KNIGHT OF THE DRAGON) is an adventure/comedy from Spain that was released in 1985/86. It blends science fiction with medieval fantasy elements into a plodding chore of a film where the only magic on display is how it manages to make 90 minutes last an eternity. I had never heard of the film before sitting down to watch it but my hopes were raised a little higher when I saw Harvey Keitel was involved. Keitel did elevate the film to a more enjoyable level but probably not for the reason he might hope. In the film, Keitel is Klever, a soldier who aspires for knighthood and the good graces of his king and, especially, the king's daughter Alba (Maria Lamor). Alba longs for marriage but her father has rejected all of her potential suitors as unworthy. When one of Alba's resulting temper tantrums brings her to the lake for a swim, she encounters a stranger beneath the waves. That stranger is an alien named IX (Miguel Bosé) and he arrived, conveniently enough, at the same time the king's medical adviser Boetius (Klaus Kinski) was performing a ritual to summon an angel (or a demon…it wasn't too clear). While Boetius believes IX to be the supernatural agent summoned to his aid, the rest of the kingdom goes in a panic when IX's spaceship is mistaken for a dragon. Princess Alba falls in love with this strange knight and finds support with Boetius (who might have his own machinations), but Klever teams with the king's religious adviser (Fernando Rey) to kill the new arrival and slay his dragon, earning his knighthood and the hand of Princess Alba in marriage.

Having seen this movie a couple of times now, the only things that seems to stick with me is how poor Harvey Keitel sticks out like a sore thumb. He's delivering the dialogue of a period piece with an accent straight out of Brooklyn. He's pledging allegiance and vowing to slay the mighty dragon, and it's just not working at all. It's the funniest part of the whole movie, which is sad because there are actual attempts at humor all over. They just fall flat every single time. The herald's series of unsuccessful visits to the townsfolk, Klever's assault on IX's ship, and the final tag with Klever and Rey and their fate; all of it lands it a dull thud. The same could be said of the film's "romantic adventure". IX arrives on Earth to catalogue fauna for his home civilization. So I guess he's on some sort of science mission. Keep in mind, IX doesn't speak so all of this is interpreted through what he shows Alba. Alba believes he is collecting animal souls for his home world, because she's primitive and ignorant. Despite the fact that Alba comes from a primitive, superstitious society and is a completely different species, IX falls in love with her. He jeopardizes his entire mission to interfere with Alba and her kind, so we know he's not much of a scientist. I have to assume this all resulted from years of lonely interstellar travel leaving IX vulnerable to the temptations of a backwards, medieval era human.

I wouldn't have spent so much time nitpicking the romance plot if there were something to keep me entertained. Maybe some conflict? There's no real conflict to drive the plot forward. Sure, Alba is in love with IX but even that doesn't seem all that important when, in a scene late in the movie, IX appears to be disinterested in protecting her honor through battle with Klever. When it looks as if IX is just going to lift off and go on with his life (as he should), she just shrugs her shoulders and prepares to accept Klever as her new suitor without much hassle. She's not that interested. She's just a rebellious young girl. Klever just wants to be taken seriously by his king but he's too much of a doofus to pull it off. He poses zero threat to IX and only gains the upper hand later in the movie because IX's species has nothing similar to the "Star Trek" prime directive to tell him it's a bad idea to give a primitive witch doctor access to a mind-controlled information orb. The only person I ever actually thought might've had evil, selfish intentions was Boetius with his weird summoning rituals and resting evil face, and I guess he was a good guy in the end. I don't know. This movie blows. Nothing about this movie makes much sense when you really think about it and, as bored as I was, I had plenty of time to think.

Of course this movie is a bunch of silly nonsense but, hey, at least it's a very entertaining bunch of silly nonsense! "Star Knight" is some sort of comical Sci-Fi fantasy/adventure with the most amazingly far-fetched plot ever and quite a deranged cast of characters. I can't but notice that the opinions of IMDb-users towards this cheaply made Spanish film are very much differing! Some reviewers seem to think it's pure crap, whereas other ones claim that it's a rather efficient spoof. I'm somewhat in the middle of both opinions. To me, "Star Knight" is a hugely inept and forgettable movie, but nevertheless an amusing one that honestly made me chuckle a couple of times. It's really astonishing that TWO eminent actors – Harvey Keitel and Klaus Kinski – agreed to star in bizarre rubbish like this. Klaus Kinski stars as Boecius; a brilliant alchemist in the 15th Century and working for a rich monarch. For no apparent reason, Boecius summoned a spaceship from the future and the poor superstitious villagers believe that it's a fiery dragon. The 'pilot' of the spaceship kidnaps and falls in love with the monarch's daughter Alba and hopes to take her back with him to the future. Harvey Keitel plays Clever; a knight who doesn't really lives up to his name and talks rather funny. Clever's duty is to free the gorgeous princess from the claws of the 'dragon'. No matter how crazy it all sounds, the screenplay contains some truly ingenious ideas. The blending of the two totally different eras, for example. Spaceships, whether alien and futuristic, usually just land in our present time but rarely ever in medieval times. It's also well observed that the villagers automatically assume that the flamboyant machine is a dragon that comes to devour their cattle and crops. This mix-up leads to gags and comical situations that could have come straight out of a Monty Python movie, only the processing is slightly poorer. Keitel and Kinski are seemly having fun in their roles (maybe it was a welcome break from their usually serious type of characters they play?) and most of the decors & set pieces are fairly adequate. The whole thing gets boring near the second half of the film, though, and particularly the silent star knight character (portrayed by the Spanish singer Miguel Bosé) becomes dreadfully annoying very quick. Worth a peek in case there really isn't anything else to rent.

What a steamer! I have to admit that I was seriously Gung-ho for this flick because it sounded intriguing and I figured, at the very least, it would be a quality film with Keitel and Kinski involved. Silly me. Star Knight (aka The Knight of the Dragon) comes off like a cheesy mash-up of Starman, Dune and Black Knight, it combines elegant, unearthly production design with ineffective, bumbling comedy and unlikable characters. The alien, his "suit of armor" and his ship were gorgeous, they deserved a film worthy of their design, not this goofy meandering crap.

I wanted to like Kinski, his ice-cold blue eyes and dazzling smile but the vibe his character gives off is decidedly sinister and therefor hard to connect with. Keitel's "brave knight" is idiotic and it only gets worse when the Brooklyn accent spills forth during his poorly delivered Olde English dialog. Honestly, this was a real forehead-slapper. I suppose the alien "IX" (Miguel Bosé) was okay but he doesn't get lines and his acting consisted of wide eyes and head nods.

Star Knight was about as basic as they come, "Alien comes to Earth to study our world and he falls in love." Big whoop, right? Well as simple as it is it really could have succeed (in its own way) had the characters worked better and the film was played straight. They didn't and it wasn't though and, in the end, instead of finding myself mildly entertained with a cool time-waster, I was bored to tears by "just plain bad." I wish I could say that it got better at some point but it didn't.

If you're all about dumb-as-rocks sci-fi comedies like Pluto Nash and Galaxy Quest then you may find this only a little disappointing. Everybody else though should steer clear unless you're a glutton for cinematic punishment, like me.

I found this gem in a sale bin of old VHS tapes about ten years ago.... I put it on not knowing what to expect... and I couldn't stop it! Mr.Keitel must have tried to buy up all the copies of this film.. because it's impossible to find anyone that has seen it before. It's absurb to point of being a Monty Python film... I can imagine that the producers started off wanting to make a serious film and half way through said.. "hey.. you know it's pretty funny.. I think we should go that way!" There must have been some great coke on set for this baby in the eighties... if you can find it, I highly suggest it over a bottle or two of your favourite bevy.

I saw "The Little Shop of Horrors" when I was a kid on late night television.. and never forgot that as being such an amazing 'cartoon' of a film... I wasn't surprised when it had a second life... not to mention John Water's "Hairspray".. it's kind of like that great old movie "The Producers"... you just can't make a movie bad enough that it won't be entertaining... to someone!

Harvey Keitel?... Klaus Kinsky?... how can you go wrong?

I just watched star knight and the story is not bad, It's just the audio is badly out of sync. For a low budget movie this one is not bad i've seen worse ones. If this movie is ever re-released i hope they fix the audio problems. I like to watch low budget sci-fi movies mostly from the 80's. The acting in star knight is not bad. Plus i hope they make a sequel to star knight. And this movie is original as far as i know. I've been wanting to see this movie for a long time. On the web i've seen some pretty lousy reviews of this movie but i don't completely agree with them. To me i just like this movie. plan 9 from outer space is worser then star knight.