What a steamer! I have to admit that I was seriously Gung-ho for this flick because it sounded intriguing and I figured, at the very least, it would be a quality film with Keitel and Kinski involved. Silly me. Star Knight (aka The Knight of the Dragon) comes off like a cheesy mash-up of Starman, Dune and Black Knight, it combines elegant, unearthly production design with ineffective, bumbling comedy and unlikable characters. The alien, his "suit of armor" and his ship were gorgeous, they deserved a film worthy of their design, not this goofy meandering crap.
I wanted to like Kinski, his ice-cold blue eyes and dazzling smile but the vibe his character gives off is decidedly sinister and therefor hard to connect with. Keitel's "brave knight" is idiotic and it only gets worse when the Brooklyn accent spills forth during his poorly delivered Olde English dialog. Honestly, this was a real forehead-slapper. I suppose the alien "IX" (Miguel Bosé) was okay but he doesn't get lines and his acting consisted of wide eyes and head nods.
Star Knight was about as basic as they come, "Alien comes to Earth to study our world and he falls in love." Big whoop, right? Well as simple as it is it really could have succeed (in its own way) had the characters worked better and the film was played straight. They didn't and it wasn't though and, in the end, instead of finding myself mildly entertained with a cool time-waster, I was bored to tears by "just plain bad." I wish I could say that it got better at some point but it didn't.
If you're all about dumb-as-rocks sci-fi comedies like Pluto Nash and Galaxy Quest then you may find this only a little disappointing. Everybody else though should steer clear unless you're a glutton for cinematic punishment, like me.
