Les Croisés de l'espace

Poul Anderson's book "The High Crusade" is an enormous milestone in the rare genre of historic alien invasions, a true work of fine penmanship, and this movie doesn't hold a candle to it.

In all honesty though, alien invasion movies, and historical realism movies generally require huge budgets to be done "right" by Hollywood standards, and combining the two sounds to me like a movie maker's nightmare. While it would be great to see the original book done justice, the budget needed for an epic battle between knights and aliens isn't likely to be forthcoming.

The movie version of the high crusade sticks with the original premise, but due to the restrictions of a very tight budget, it was necessary to scale everything back. The special effects are sparing, the sets are repetitive, the script is a little worn around the edges, and the actors are, for the most part, not huge names.

All things considered, the movie does especially well for what it has. The slick, smart humor of Poul Anderson is cut out to make room for a lot of silly European humor, but thankfully, it all works great. Certainly, there are not a lot of surprises, but the gist remains funny, and it is the first movie I've seen my boorish father laugh at in over five years, which has to say something.

Also, the movie is pretty clean. The worst language is the repetitive use of "bloody," "bastards," "Hell," and "Devil's." The bloodiest wound in the movie is a bump on the head. Two battle scenes, and a severed leg don't spill a drop though. A certain amount of reproductive humor adds a bit of spice to the movie, but this is done in as tasteful a manner as the matterial can be done.

Certainly, a lot was lost from the book, but the movie that is left makes for several good laughs, and memorable one-liners.

In one of his books Terry Pratchett describes a light that would "make Steven Spielberg reach for his copyright lawyer." I've always felt Mr. Andersons book was like that light. It was the sort of thing Spielberg or Lucas or the Disney studios could grab and run with. Unfortunately this version is a stumbling fumble. Hopefully Lucas or Spielberg or someone will read the book one day and go for a remake and we can forget that this wasted effort ever existed. My children bought me the DVD of this movie because I'd told them for years that someday the book would be a great motion picture...they still apologize now and then for not watching it first and buying me a tie instead.

A mildly amusing film. And I do put an emphasis in the word "mildly". It doesn't go further than that.

You get farcical treatments of cliche subject matter. The wide feels underappreciated, the barbarians just want to pillage, the advanced aliens try to explain basic scientific knowledge to medieval idiots, etc. And of course everything gets wrapped up in a quick and tidy happy ending.

It's a bunch of tripe capped off with an insufferable final tracked that puts quotes from the movie to an ugly techno beat.

The original book was a bit farcical and silly in its own right, but it had ambiance and an intriguing concept. It had runaway ambition and intrigue and sincere portrayals of betrayal, romantic and otherwise. This film doesn't amount to even a fraction of what the book was and in no way deserves to bear its name.

Honourable Mentions: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Probably the darkest of the Disney movies. Turns a serious novel into a musical with comedy elements. It wasn't bad, though.

Rented it because of the book. Enjoyed it for it's own Pythonesque humor.

It's not a serious movie and it doesn't take itself seriously, nor are the actors all that good. Nonetheless, it takes a very light-hearted approach that is fun if you are in the right mood. My 15-yr old son and I laughed and laughed, my wife left the room.

Did you enjoy Time Bandits (especially the scene with Robin Hood?) How about Monty Python's Holy Grail (especially the scene with the rabbit?) If yes, give it a try; if not, you've been warned. As my son says, "It's so random!!" However, from him, this is something close to praise.

For what it is, the production values are pretty good and the jokes (especially in the subtitles) are frequent. Others criticize it for not being what they wished it were. Yes, there could be a much different movie made that takes Pohl Anderson's book more seriously. It could be the basis of a good series of the SciFi Channel. But if you can take THIS movie as it is and put aside thoughts of the OTHER movie you might wish it were, you can have some fun.

That's how it looks from here.

Poul Anderson had done all the screenwriters' work for them. With a solid historical backbone, subtle wit, and an engaging story, his novel was enough to relegate the writing of the script to a fill-in-the-blank exercise. Instead, the movie emerges as a pale ripoff of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, yet with even more historical inaccuracies (HIGH CRUSADE has Jerusalem falling to Saracens in 1345, not 1187, and even has a trio of Saracens attacking a keep in England!)

The dialogue does flirt with intelligence, as when John Rhys-Davies's character, Brother Parvus, insistently tries to "educate" spacefaring aliens about the Holy Trinity and geocentric cosmology, but ultimately it's just a tease. Things quickly descend into weak farce, and some devices, such as the aliens' construction of an evil human clone, are pure throwaway filler.

I sure hope Poul Anderson never saw this film. My fear is that he would never sell film rights for one of his excellent books again, which would be a shame, since in the right hands some fine movies could be produced.