I have been wanting to watch George Romero's Knightriders for a while now and have just finished watching it. What I was expecting was plenty of crazy motorbike mounted jousting action with maybe not so much emphasis on the story. I obviously am an idiot, none of Romero's films are all style and no substance and Knight Rider is no exception. In fact it may well be my new favourite film.
I have always been a fan of the Middle Ages with its knights and heraldry and all the other good stuff, and even though it’s set in 1980's America Knightriders really captures the spirit of those times.
The film is basically about a group of people who run a medieval fair where motorbike jousting is the main attraction. Billy (Ed Harris) is the king of the group and Morgan (Tom Savini) is his main rival for the throne. There are other Romero regular in the cast too Ken Foree has a smallish part as a weapon smith and Scott H. Reiniger pops up too.
What really impressed me about this film was the story and characters. It could have easily been an action exploitation film a generic good knightriders vs. bad but it isn’t. All of the characters are fully fleshed out and have character arcs that have been fully realised by the end of the film. We are thrown into the world of these people straight off with no introduction to what they do and learn everything we need to know through their actions. But that does not mean that everything is fully explained. There is plenty of room for though in Knightriders and things often happened that I questioned and had to think about, however I never felt they happened for no reason what so ever. To me this is a sign of a fantastic script and a great film. I'm sure that for these reasons I will be able to go back to Knightriders again and again and find more and more things to catch my attention.
All of this and I nearly forgot to mention the action. It's fantastic. The bike jousting scenes look extremely dangerous with people being lanced, maced, flailed and clubbed off their bikes, riders jumping over ramps into each other and some excellent motorbike and sidecar sword fighting action. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was seriously hurt in the making of it. If you're not convinced by my other reason to watch this its worth watching for the bike carnage alone.
Kightridersis highly, highly recommended to anyone who has not seen it.
P.S.
If anyone knows what the best edition of this to get on DVD is (i.e. extra wise) I would be grateful for the info as I'm gonna buy it ASAP.
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