The Green Knight – Mostly Disappointing
This is under V because of Alicia Vikander
Director: David Lowery
Writer: David Lowery (Screenplay)
Starring: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Kate Dickie, Ralph Ineson, Barry Keoghan, Sean Harris
Plot: A fantasy re-telling of the medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Tagline – When honor was everything. When courage made kings
Runtime: 2 Hours 10 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Green Knight starts on Christmas Day when the Green Knight (Ineson) challenges the King (Harris) to a game, let one of his knights lay a blow upon him, he will reclaim that right one-year later, with nobody stepping up, it is Gawain (Patel) that accepts the challenge.
With one-year apart to pass, Gawain must make the journey to the Green Chaplin to meet his fate with the Green Knight, a journey that will be filled with peril along the way.
Thoughts on The Green Knight
Characters & Performances – Gawain is one of the nephews of the knights of the round table, wanting to become a knight himself, only to spend most of his days drinking. He steps up to a challenge from the Green Knight to strike him. One-year later he must have the trike returned, meaning he must travel to the Green Knights kingdom, where he will need to overcome a string of obstacles and challenges that will lead to an encounter with the knight. Dev Patel does a great job in the leading role being the one that is on the adventure. When it comes to the supporting cast, we get to meet the different figures involved with the round table and the people Gawain meets on his journey. We have an all-star supporting cast including Alicia Vikander, Sean Harris, Joel Edgerton and Ralph Ineson who all do a great job with the scenes they are in.
Story – The story here follows a young aspiring knight looking to become part of the roundtable that gets offered a chance to prove himself against the Green Knight for a Christmas game, he will need to travel to meet the man if he is to prove himself, we get to follow his journey. This is a story that will get the journey into the unknown underway, it will have moments that are unexplainable, with the ideas of where the journey is going, having a potential deadly fate. It will do one of the cinema sins with how certain parts of the story are told, which ends up feeling disappointing and does end up being too long of a film. If you don’t know anything about the character, you might also find certain parts of the story confusing, which in all fairness, is the biggest weakness involved in the film.
Themes – The Green Knight is a fantasy thriller with a journey that will take our character across many different lands in search for answers, leading us to different mystery for him to encounter, we do have some strong special effects, even if the film does end up going in a strange direction.
Final Thoughts – The Green Knight is a film with plenty of talk about it that ends up falling flat with a meaningful story.
