First Knight is directed by Jerry Zucker, and stars Sean Connery, Ben Cross, Richard Gere, and Julia Armond. The musical score is composed by Jerry Goldsmith. ***

First Knight is one of many cinematic takes on the classic legend of King Arthur. The knight Lancelot falls in love with the queen Guinevere - but she's already set to marry Arthur himself. As if the romantic issues weren't already enough, a ruthless foe aims to conquer the kingdom for his own purposes. ***

Let me start by saying that, even though Jerry Zucker (Airplane!, The Naked Gun) directed this film, it is NOT a comedy or spoof. If you're looking for a medieval comedy, go watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ***

But how is the movie itself? To put it simply, it's a hit and miss affair. The principle cast is amazing, and they fall right into these roles. Additionally, the cinematography looks fantastic, and it beautifully captures the medieval-style battles and look of the film. And Jerry Goldsmith serves up another one of his fantastic film scores. However, the movie itself tends to be all over the place. The emphasis is more on romantic drama than action, and the general feel of the movie is a bit too glamorized. Still, there's more than enough to recommend it. ***

As far as the positives go, there are plenty of aspects here worth praising. Everyone who acts in this film does a fantastic job. This is one aspect of the movie that tends to get a mixed reaction from assorted audiences and critics, but everyone gets the job done and then some. The always-excellent Sean Connery is, once again, excellent here as King Arthur. The medieval-style combat looks great, this is one of the best examples of it to ever be featured on the big screen. And last but not least, Jerry Goldsmith shows off some of his finest musical score compositions throughout the film. ***

The problems with First Knight can't be ignored, however. There is far more emphasis on romance than action, so anyone coming in here looking for epic battles galore will be disappointed to discover that they don't take up as much of the movie as one would expect. Additionally, the film tends to drag on for over two hours, and this length could easily have been trimmed to under two hours. Still, despite these issues, the good outweighs the bad. ---

Image And Sound:

First Knight has never looked better on a home video format. The cinematography, one of the best things about this movie, comes across brilliantly on this DVD. There is some minor grain in a few shots of the movie, but it doesn't change the fact that this is the best the movie has looked to date. ***

The audio quality fares just as well. Be it dialogue, a sound effect in combat, or Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic score, everything audio is fantastic on this disc. ---

There are quite a few special features included in this set, but disappointingly there aren't a whole lot that will be of interest. The deleted scenes are few in number (we only get three of them) and they aren't too terribly interesting. To put it simply, there's a reason they were cut from the film. Still, a fan of the movie should check them out at least once. There are two commentary tracks, one with director Jerry Zucker and one of the film's producers, and one from a scholar specializing in Arthurian legend. The Zucker commentary is pretty standard fare, basically what you'd expect from a standard “movie on DVD” commentary, with the two of them giving comments throughout on the various scenes and situations. The Arthurian scholar commentary was the one I found to be the more entertaining of the two. This scholar knows how to educate his listeners, but has a razor-sharp wit and always keeps your attention and interest. Lastly come the making-of featurettes. Amongst the themes explored in these featurettes are the research into making the film and the fight scenes look authentic to medieval times, as well as the production aspect of things. While some of this stuff is pretty entertaining, it's all going to leave you wanting more.

Final Words: