We’ve all seen them before, those films that rip a person from their own times and plunk them down in present day to have some misadventures and probably find themselves some love along the way. From Kate & Leopold to Just Visiting to goddamn Merlin: The Return, these movies are a dime a dozen and tend to follow a pretty discernible formula of discovery and whatnot, usually have some sort of third-act breakup (I mean, most of these are essentially romantic comedies, but even when they’re not they still tend to operate as such), and we all learn that things were better way back when, pretty much regardless of when that way back when was.
If you somehow thought that The Knight Before Christmas was gonna be in any way different, I wanna have some o’ what you’re having.
Not one to break the mold, the story begins in 1334 Norwich, where we meet young Sir Cole (that very fourteenth-century name, “Cole”, but it’s rife for future punning) whilst on what this film thinks is a hawking competition: He and his fellow knights all chase after the king’s falconer’s raptor. ‘Kay. In the forest, he meets an old crone – words that are repeated constantly, as he has no other method of referring to her – who magically whisks him into the future and tasks him with completing his quest before the strike of midnight on X-Mas morn. He arrives in small-town Ohio just under seven centuries later. As contrivance would have, he’s struck by a car driven by Brooke, a teacher with some fucking extravagant housing (especially for her profession) and, apparently, a deep yen for a good dicking. Feeling guilty she seemingly robbed a dude of his memories and made him believe he’s a medieval knight, she invites Cole to stay in her luxurious guest house (what’d I tell ya?), and the two proceed to bond and whatnot over the ensuing week, all while Cole endeavors to solve the mystery of his One True Quest and get back to his own time. But will he want to?
So, yeah, this is exactly those movies mentioned above.
As a would-be historian, I couldn’t help but be constantly exasperated by the depiction of knights and their code of chivalry, which the writers understand to mean acting like a figurative knight in shining armor at all times. Yeah, not so much, kiddos. Cole states he was knighted by King Edward III six years earlier (in his time), but ol’ Eddie 3 had just acceded the throne, and though I’m sure some minor knighthoods may have been dished out, there wouldn’t be a Knight of the Garter for over a decade after Cole’s present. Nice one, guys. Speaking of his present, he supposedly hangs out around Norwich Castle, but that castle we’re shown ain’t Norwich Castle, not even close, especially in design. Why bother having these details in there if you’re just gonna get them wrong, all because you’re too fucking lazy to do a few minutes of Google searching? Similarly, Cole and his contemporaries just strut about in their armor all seemingly all times, ignoring just how expensive and cumbersome doing so would be on a regular basis. Use a little bit of sense, guys!
But, admittedly, that’s a tall order for these filmmakers, who see absolutely nothing wrong with Brooke very clearly taking advantage of a man in whom she thinks she caused some serious mental trauma. She’s so hard up for some dick that she constantly leers at Cole, looking him up and down at every sight with an obvious sexual hunger. Worse, her sister, on only being around Cole for maybe a couple minutes at most, judges him to be the “whole package” and actively encourages Brooke to get with him. Ladies, I’m gonna need your help here: Is he all that and a bag of chips? I mean, he’s generally polite and all, and who doesn’t love the accent amiright, but is he all that amazing looking? And is it alright to treat him like such a piece of meat while he’s ostensibly convalescing from a brain injury?
Then there’s the little things, like Brooke having “so many X-Mas chores” to do and having a box of special X-Mas decoration, giving her a sense of oddness, even in a X-Mas movie (I’ll give her some leeway on the latter, ‘cause said decorations belonged to her late mother, but it just feels weird regardless). Cole catches on exceedingly quickly, attuning to modern day in a matter of hours, despite the bewildering effect technology and even speech patterns would have on him. I mean, he easily reads a diner menu, even though his particular dialect of English (a sort of Middle English) would be decidedly different from his own (just try reading a “translation” of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and you’ll see a hint of what I mean). Shit, he’s even able to ape our modern slang – including such gems as “AF” and the like – just from watching a bit of Netflix. I’d hit the streaming platform for brazen self-product-placement here, but they outdo themselves on that front, having Cole stay up watching Holiday in the Wild (itself a potential addition to this painful quest of mine). Gag me. They keep referring to Brooke’s car as a horse or steed, even though a better term – and one he’s familiar with – would be “carriage”, and he even figures out how to drive it fairly well in a matter of minutes! I could go on, but it would be even more tedious than the film, most likely.
On the technical side, there’s not much to see here. The lighting is flat, the cinematography is flatter, the acting is fine (credit where credit’s due, Vanessa Hudgens seems to be trying and comes off fairly naturally (if stuck in a series of contrivances), and Josh Whitehouse at least looks to be having some fun as a fish-out-of-time knight), and the editing and music are both stock (save the X-mas songs they either licensed or re-recorded, the worst versions of these songs I’ve heard in years). The script is where things falter, as is expected for these X-Mas flicks, but it could have been worse, I suppose. Still, it’s riddled with cliché’s, contrivances, and kinda icky situations if its own conceits are to be followed.
There wasn’t quite the amount of pain I expected from this, and I credit that to Hudgens being nigh-on genuine in her performance of a trite concept. I learned nothing of value, save our understanding of history is shaky and hole-ridden at best. I’ve ingested more saccharine before and lived to tell the tale without developing diabetes (knock on wood!), but not by very much. I can only sigh, question my life choices a bit, and move on. Thanks, Cole-bama.
Allusions of Grandeur 