Night of the Templar

Really, don't waste any of your time or money on this dreadful film. Implausible story Implausible characters Poorly cast Poorly acted Poorly directed. Dreadful accents Nothing redeeming at all. Very difficult to see how it's scored as highly as it has. Not helped by large amounts of knitted chain-mail. I have no idea how to fill 10 lines of text with relevant comment, nor do I have any idea why unnecessary length makes a review better. Surely a quick and concise review is more useful than a lot of twaddle?

Really, don't waste any of your time or money on this dreadful film. Implausible story Implausible characters Poorly cast Poorly acted Poorly directed. Dreadful accents Nothing redeeming at all. Very difficult to see how it's scored as highly as it has. Not helped by large amounts of knitted chain-mail. I have no idea how to fill 10 lines of text with relevant comment, nor do I have any idea why unnecessary length makes a review better. Surely a quick and concise review is more useful than a lot of twaddle?

I waited quite the while for this one to be released in the states and was thinking I would be in for a let down. Let me tell you I was far from let down. It met all my expectations and completely went beyond. An original story telling for its kind that I have not seen for a long time, if at all. A rare find that is now in the front of my DVD collection. That will be watched over and over. And over.

I feel the need to point out the soundtrack also. It is worthy of the very best audio systems you can think of. It alone made it worth getting. I would have liked very much to have listened and enjoyed this one in the movie theaters. Then buy it on the way home to watch again. It has so many different aspects and genres happening together. It really doesn't matter where you are. You will lose yourself in this film.

Lets not forget the cast. What can be said about them that would be worthy. Skilled, artistic, masterful, original. And more to be sure. They really made this one-of-a-kind film into an instant cult classic. Kudos to multi-talented Paul Sampson for making and bringing together such an ensemble of talented actors, the like I haven't seen together before. And also have the ability to act out many great scenes from past to present. Along with David Carradine's performances and the entire cast. It makes this film a viewing sensation from honor and betrayal, to blood and vengeance, to dark humor and sexy indulgences. And a lot of things in between. I feel Night of the Templar will give viewers a wide spectrum of movie entertainment.

I have just endured this film, and frankly, found it to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. The knights in battle scenes are reminiscent of a local village re-enactment society performing to a bunch of schoolchildren. The main character constantly talking to himself was laughable and made him less than believable as a character.

Flashback scenes to times of the crusades were cringe worthy. The sudden dramatic music when showing scenes of the main house, made no sense at all, other than to advise the viewer that this was possibly a scary house, where nothing really scary happened.

My local dramatic society, comprising of pensioners and eager school children, could have done a far better job of the story, and made it more believable.

I watched this movie some time ago, because I was in a Reedus-frenzy after TWD, but Oh My, nothing could prepare me for this movie! It is the most awkward movie I have ever seen, and I barely made it to the end, wanting to just turn it off way before. The only thing holding me back was my friend, who I had forced to watch this movie with me, who said: We have made it so far through this awful film, we might as well see if it stays bad 'til the very end. Nothing was good about it. I cringed,and laughed (not in a good way) and hid behind a pillow (to protect myself from the awkwardness), The story was shallow, the "history"poor, I felt bad for the actors, the females were horribly portrayed and treated, the production was bad..... The only funny thing about this, is the reviews, which I have a suspicion is written of or on behalf of the creator of the movie. But seriously - don't waste your time with this! You will never get that time back!

A Paul Sampson Film.

Occasionally I watch a film that leaves me so dumbstruck that I go and look it up on the ol' net thingy. This is one such film. I watched amazed as this trope-fest unfolded in front of me, shook my head and went looking for the reviews. My amazement at the film was nothing compared with my amazement at the glowing reviews with their talk of fine acting and marvellous story, superb direction, lavish sets..

I was so amazed that I checked the profiles and review of a couple of the critics. Yep. it was the only film they'd reviewed. I checked a couple more, then another half dozen, then a dozen... Sure enough, in each and every case it was the only film they'd ever reviewed on IMDb. I gave up after just over half of the reviews. All were on-offs. Am I seeing a smoking gun here, anyone? Of course, my selection of reviewers was made blindly, though apparently with the sort of randomness that makes us all lightning-struck lottery winners. Maybe the ones I didn't look at were all seasoned critics who had never met Paul Sampson. You can do your own leg-work - or let your inner statistician decide.

A Paul Sampson Film.

The hilarity began with the opening credits.. A Paul Sampson film, handled by Sampson Enterprises. Produced by Paul Sampson. Directed by Paul Sampson. I think maybe Wardrobe by Paul Sampson, Catering by... I'm sure you get the picture. Starring wait for it... wait for it, it'll be a surprise... PAUL SAMPSON!!!

Rather like - Starring George Lucas as Darth Solo!!!-

Now I've absolutely nothing against vanity enterprises. Some great art has come our way thusly. This isn't some of it, unfortunately. This is to film what the Dave Clarke Five was to drumming - pretty boy with the business plan at the front of the stage. In this case, pretty boy with (it seems) a lot of friends with favours he can call in, in front of the camera. The whole premise is "look how handsome/cool I am.. how can I wrap some kind of plot around that to justify me mugging at the camera for an entire feature film?" Well, he's appealing enough in a caricature-handsome large-featured kind of way and he's in pretty good shape, but boy, he wants us to notice it. If anyone doubts this, check out the whole new genre of "Sword and Underwear" he seems to have invented as an answer to decades of chain-mail bikini fantasies. Unfortunately it presents as very dry parody, which is often a wonderful thing - but not when it's this clumsy and the thing being parodied is the ongoing film itself. Anyway, the acting, and "feel" of the entire film was that of a comedy TV series doing a sketch based on an early 80s porn film, without any of the porn. Not the Swedish/Dutch "I haff cumm to mends your vashink machine. It looks ferry vet down there, let me get my tool out while the funky guitar and keyboard play..." but the American/German "We have rented a place in the country and have only one reel of film. Let us party and think up a situation we can finish up by being naked and smearing each other with offal and ketchup" type of entertainment that my grandmother so likes to watch, but purely for the soundtrack.

I enjoyed the watching of the film, rather than enjoyed watching it if you see the difference. Sometimes I enjoy the process of watching the film-making, not necessarily the end result. Here the end result was risible, which is rather a shame because a couple of the cast were really putting something special into it and it was nice to see Carradine again though the parallels with Béla Lugosi in Plan Nine From Outer Space drew rather poignant grid lines. Sadly missed, both. Worth seeing as a curiosity, and if I must draw another parallel - in intent if not style or subject matter - I'd say Easy Rider for the focus on the ac-tors rather than the pseudo medievalism of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - which was far funnier on a smaller budget. Knights/Night Templar was not intentionally funny, and was not terrible enough to be really great as some truly memorable turkeys are, but it is an awful, fascinating train wreck of a movie which has no charm whatever. I feel the same cast could have pulled it off with more astute direction, but we'll never know for certain.

Oh - nice to see Mr Mxyzptlk again, playing The Butler.

3 out of 10 as it stopped me thinking about the overdraft and sciatica for the duration.