Le chevalier du dragon

I was reading what the guy above said about it and no i have no clue how Harvey got suckered into doing this film. it is raw comedy for him. Typical princess meets the man of her dreams and can't have him film with Harvey as the knight who loves her and her money and is gonna kill the one she loves to impress the dad and princess, marry her, and thus be rich. Only problem is, he can't...and the idiocy of his fighting with a man who cannot be beaten...he is in an IRON suit which a bunch of swords cannot penetrate, is a riot! This must have been done during the BAD years when he had to buy baby formula and stuff. But see it just for the HUMOR and likeness to those crazy 60's sci-fi flicks like "It Came From Outer Space".

Whatever you think of Star Knight – good or bad – the one thing that cannot be denied is this is a very strange movie. Its combination of a medieval yarn with science fiction is somewhat odd and surely must be a result of the writers simply combining two popular genres of the day - the fantasy action flick with Spielbergian sci-fi. It's a concoction that needless to say doesn't work all that well. Set in medieval Europe, the story revolves around the appearance of a 'dragon'. Turns out it's actually a spaceship but the locals of course never understand this. On board the ship is a spacesuit clad alien, who is the star knight of the title. It's a very silly story to be honest.

Other than the strange narrative, the second aspect that marks this one out is its very interesting cast. Well, it's interesting on paper at least. Specifically the combination of Klaus Kinski with Harvey Keitel is something that should catch the interest of most cult movie fans (although I don't actually remember them both appearing on screen at the same time though). Kinski plays an alchemist and is unfortunately dubbed, while Keitel is a knight and amusingly is not dubbed, seeing as his New York accent could not be more inappropriate for a medieval character. The 80's was a bit of a graveyard for a lot of film stars who rose to prominence in the 70's and this film indicates the strange places Keitel went in this decade before his re-emergence in the early 90's.

Despite all of the factors above, Star Knight is unfortunately a pretty weak effort. Its eccentricities never make up for the general lameness of events depicted. It seems to in fact, be a comedy as well but not a very funny one to be honest. Production values aren't bad though with handsome period detail and alright special effects of the spaceship. But despite this and its original aspects, it's still not terribly good fun.

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.

If you are a fan of Klaus Kinski as I am then you must own this movie. Watch it once, check it off your list, then never watch it again. What a waste of celluloid, time, and effort. Quite simply this is an enormously huge waste of time. Think of all of the hungry children the budget of this film could have fed.......