The King's Guard

Well, they had to make a period piece without expensive locations, crew, or even horses, that they couldn't obviously afford, and with some reasonably well known names, and that is what you get with this one. I couldn't stand more than 40 minutes of this. English accent was too pushed. I like Roberts, but he is not much on screen here. His top billing is more a marketing stunt. If I remember correctly, he is not even main villain. Ron is also an excellent actor, also wasted. The whole thing sinks... I will try to remember this film when I hear people badmouthing Kingdom of Heaven or Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. I love low-bud films, but not when they are so poor and uncreative.

This film is a wonderful send-up of several action films: you have the outnumbered soldiers from the "Alamo" and "Zulu"; The comedy pairings akin to "The Lady Vanishes", and the bawdy fun of "The Princess Bride."

Okay... I've seen high school students with handicams do better stuff than this. I don't know which was worse... Eric Roberts' awful, contrived character, the illogical love story between the two main characters, or the fact that they went and killed off Ron Perlman, who, as far as I could tell was the only one actually DOING any acting. I love swordfights, and these guys seem to have some good ability there... but even that seemed over-rehearsed and passionless. Character development is nonexistent. A previous reviewer commented that you can tell the people in the film were having fun... but it certainly didn't rub off on me. I was too busy trying to figure out the purpose for ever having made this film to start with.

This certainly isn't the greatest movie ever made, but doesn't claim to be. It's just an adventure film with romance that's fun and thoroughly entertaining with a surprisingly good cast of newcomers. Trevor St. John as the lead definitely stood out (he's now on the soap "One Life to Live" and very nice to look at) I thought about a film in the same genre that came out about the same time, " A Knight's Tale" which also had a handsome male lead and romantic princess connection. The other quirky characters were also fun to watch. I think it warrants a good sequel with a somewhat bigger budget, if you know what I mean. It's a great movie for kids. Lent it to a friend and her little daughter could not stop watching it over and over again. A great movie for the family. It doesn't really warrant the PG 13 rating as I do not normally let my 10 yr old son watch PG 13 and am very careful about what he watches, but this was just fine. The outtakes are hilarious. Review from a 10 year old boy: "My favorite movie. It's funny with lots of action. Two big thumbs up!"

Treachery, villainy, swordplay, noble secret love and a princess in peril: what more could the average ten year old would-be Musketeer ask for?

Set in the days of chivalry at sword point, "The King's Guard" is the tale of the "last stand" of a princess (Ashley Jones) being taken to a marriage that will save her father's throne and the young noble Guard (Trevor St. John) who secretly loves her, against the traitorous ex-Guard (Eric Roberts) who wants her and the greedy Lord (Ron Perlman) who wants her dowry.

This movie has nice costumes and I think that's where most of the money went. Ninety-nine percent of it takes place in one setting. There are no horses although the DVD cover shows them. The acting runs the spectrum from almost-painful-to-watch (Jones) to oh-good-someone-knows-what-they're-doing (Perlman, Roberts). The sword play, although decently choreographed, is done too hesitantly by most of the actors to be truly exciting.

People who are into the Renaissance Faire, SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and LARP (Live Action Role Playing) scenes may be able to glean some inspiration from the costumes and sword play.

Although there is much fighting there is no blood or gore so this would be an excellent family movie for anyone with young children going through a swashbuckling phase.

Worth a rent for gamers, worth a rent/buy used for youngsters.