Black Knight

Martin Lawrence is a kind of wannabe Will Smith who has singularly failed to actually make any decent films and been dire in those he has starred in despite being the best thing about the film. Lawrence is apparently a great stand up comedian, but doesn't have the knack Smith has for picking good comedies (such as Men in Black) to display his talents. Black Knight seems to have sunk without trace at the multiplexes of the US and frankly I can't see me seeing it any time soon.
Randy Edelman was probably a good choice of composer as he wrote one of his best scores with the historical fantasy Dragonheart and has a decent track record of scoring comedies. Black Knight doesn't honestly feature anything new and is decidedly weaker than Dragonheart and the comedy aspects are all starting to blur into one. Of course, since Lawrence's character is a street wise guy from the present day sent back in time, Edelman latches onto this with some funky stuff that kicks off only a minute into the otherwise quite stately main theme. I can't say I'm a great fan of this type of thing, the urban groove just isn't my cup of tea. He does mix the style with some pseudo medieval riffs in The Middle Age Inn amongst others, but not to any great effect. The similarly anachronistic A Knight's Tale did something similar, but in that case the music totally out of its time were rock songs, whereas Carter Burwell's score provided a more solid dramatic basis.

Most of the best parts are in the middle with the exciting The Black Knight and Escape Over the Moat, but it's still fairly simplistic stuff. The overall result is a mish mash of fairly mediocre orchestral tracks in amongst the funkier elements and I doubt that many people will enjoy both. They certainly don't sit as happily alongside as they should. Edelman has ultimately given the film the kind of score it not only deserves, but that it needs. Keen Randy Edelman fans will undoubtedly enjoy every minute since it doesn't diverge from his style in any way, but is still a fairly entertaining album, even if the last track doesn't resolve, thus giving the feeling that something else should follow when in fact it's the end. A bit like this review.