Last Knights (2015) [Blu-ray]
Action | Adventure

Clive Owen delivers an electrifying performance as a fallen warrior who rises against a corrupt and sadistic ruler to avenge his dishonored master, Morgan Freeman, in this epic, sword-clashing adventure of loyalty, honor, and vengeance.

Storyline: A fallen warrior rises against a corrupt and sadistic ruler to avenge his dishonored master in a sword-clashing adventure of loyalty, honor, and vengeance. Written by Lionsgate

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 30, 2015 -- Keanu Reeves is rightly or wrongly "credited" with emitting "woah" at the veritable drop of a hat, but he may have actually been saying "whoa" instead, at least that is if he ever went on record about Last Knights, a film which bears a curious connection to Reeves' own 47 Ronin 3D, and which Reeves—certainly no stranger to misbegotten cinema outings—may have wished to halt in its snow encrusted tracks. Resetting the venerable Edo era tale into a mythical quasi-historical setting that oddly takes a page out of Star Trek: The Original Series by proffering an almost absurdly multicultural and multiracial universe that is almost willfully anti-historical, Last Knights is a bizarre mash up of martial arts and political subterfuge, all within a chainmail clad ambience that is evidently meant to evoke more redolent franchises like Game of Thrones. Star Clive Owen tries his best to overcome ludicrous plot mechanics and sometimes risible dialogue, but is largely left to flounder through an occasionally visually alluring film that offers little dramatic heft to keep audiences engaged. Putative co-star Morgan Freeman gets to deliver an impassioned soliloquy or two, but at least had the good sense to choose a role that (minor spoiler alert) doesn't exactly make it to the end of the film.

As a classical music lover, I must take a moment to decry the use of the vaunted surname Bartok in at least a couple of questionable contexts in films, contexts which have nothing to do with one of Hungary's most iconic composers. Animation fans may remember the Hank Azaria voiced bat in Anastasia, a character which resurfaced in 1999's Bartok the Magnificent, and now the same surname adorns the Morgan Freeman character, a patrician sort who utilizes the fighting skills of his acolyte Raiden (Clive Owen) to keep his territory (relatively) peaceful. Unfortunately, though, Bartok is not at the top of the food chain, and needs to pay homage to the nefarious Gezza Mott (Aksell Hennie), a corrupt official within the court of the Emperor (Peyman Moaadi).

The screenplay by Michael Konyves and Dove Sussman plops the viewer down in media res, which in this case turns out to be a fight scene, seemingly for no other reason than it's de rigeur for a supposed historical action epic to start with a sequence like this. That soon wends into a very talky, overly expository, section where at least some elements of this frankly weird environment are detailed. The quasi father-son relationship between Bartok and Raiden is nicely handled, albeit rather briefly, with Bartok bestowing a treasured sword on Raiden. That sword turns out to be two edged (sorry), as a predictable course of events leads to Raiden having to submit to the whims of Gezza Mott and the Emperor (leading to that aforementioned early exit by Freeman). That in turn leads to an almost comically long middle section of the film where Raiden nurses his emotional wounds in an alcoholic stupor while Gezza Mott, certain that Raiden will return one day to exact revenge, sequesters himself away in an impossibly over fortified fortress. Could an epic showdown be far behind?

Director Kaz Kiriya has a fantastic eye for detail, as he proved quite admirably in Casshern and (especially) Goemon, but he struggles here to maintain momentum, fighting against a screenplay that wants to inject a few too many "twists" and needless sidebars into the proceedings. The film was evidently shot several years ago and then languished in post for quite some time, and there are some signs here that perhaps funding was inadequate to artfully complete elements like CGI. Owen is really rather surprisingly good, bringing a world weary mien to a fairly cliché ridden character, but Last Knights is a curiously unsatisfying hodgepodge that never amounts to much more than a couple of admittedly spectacular set pieces bridged by some interminable plot mechanics.

All I can say is the next film featuring a character named Bartok had better show a hard working musicologist out collecting folk tunes in the wilds of Hungary. Even Clive Owen and Morgan Freeman fans may be hard pressed to find enough here to warrant a purchase, for Last Knights never connects on an emotional level, and its storytelling proclivities are haphazard at best. For those who are considering a purchase, technical merits are generally first rate.

[CSW] -2.3- Production, music score, directing are actually decent. Performance is decent. But somehow I don't seem to feel much for the story which is the medieval version of Chushingura (the ronins who waited to avenge the death of their master in the Japanese warlord era), but the evil minister is just plain silly, dragging this movie another 30 mins unnecessarily longer than it should have been. Replace the word warrior with samarai, replace the word honor with samarai code, and the adaption of Chushingura is complete, even down to the self-sacrifice of Owen in the end. Then again, the director/producer is Japanese (Kaz Kiriya), it should come as no surprise.
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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