Knight Rider 2010

I had never heard of this movie until it was played after "Knight Rider 2000" on Sci-Fi recently ... and I had wished I hadn't. It was nowhere near what "Knight Rider" was all about ... needless to say, giving it two thumbs down is not remotely close to how bad this movie was.

This 'movie' is rarely discussed or aired on TV. There is a very good reason why, I'll explain.

Aside from the name in the title and a guy driving a car, this movie really has NOTHING at all to do with the 80's TV series 'Knight Rider'that most of us grew up watching. Instead this movie is more like a low budget Mad Max sequel with cyber-punk undertones. I'll try and sum up the movie for you: In the future earth is barren and polluted, there's this guy with a big truck who smuggles people into the clean air domes (makes ya think of Total Recall, eh?) he meets up with this scientist guy who wants to steal his organs using this soul-stealing crystal thing, the immigrant smuggler guy's girlfriend gets her soul trapped in the crystal instead, immigrant smuggler guy then puts the crystal into a car he built from scraps of a Mustang. The scientist villain guy is thwarted, a joke is made about doing some matrix-ish cybersex interface thing and our heroes drive off into the sunset.

The TV movie before 2010; KR2000 was crud but it at least had some relevance to the 80's series, Team Knight Rider was also terrible but still had ties to KITT and The Foundation. KR2010 is crap. Mr. Hasselhoff and Mr. Larson; if you have any sense, don't let 'Knight Rider: The Movie' be like this. Base it around the pilot ep where Michael Long is shot, please... We're tired of made-for-TV garbage. If Dukes of Hazzard can have a decent theatre movie, can't Knight Rider?

A bad movie? Not really. Knight Rider? Hell no. Not even close. Doing a sequel to a popular series is always a tricky thing but at least some element of the original has to remain intact to make it work. While Knight Rider seemed to be the possible starting point for a new series with new leads BUT with KITT firmly in place the series the potential was there for a new series to work.

2010 removes itself entirely from the original series. The payoff for 2010 would have been our heroes stumbling upon KITT's interface by integrating it (by chance, of course) into an old Trans Am, unearthing the lost legacy of Michael Knight's crusade for justice.

I have seen the movie Knight Rider 2010 and do agree that it is not the best.in fact,it is extremely poorly produced.However-I think Tug 3 should get his facts right.James Doohan is in Knight Rider 2000,and not Knight Rider 2010.Dont' roll over my leg KITT!In any event the original is a great show which,although very eighties,still carries enough punch to make the grade.Reading about how some of the stunt work was done makes the big budget shows of today a bit naff.some of KN might seem a bit cheesy,but then again,some cheeses have a great flavour.and if super pursuit don't blow your mind just see a black pontiac close up-KITT is timeless.cue purple sunset

Believe it or not, I've watched this KR at least ten more times than KR 2000. It's not because the movie is a masterpiece, but it really does push the envelope on the KR legend and tries to do something interesting with it.

Jake McQueen is a cool character since he's not a pure good guy, quite frankly, the guy was a criminal and ultimately winds up serving justice, not just the law. He is in essence a "young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless and the powerless".

The supporting cast does their jobs well and seeing a pre-Xena Hudson Leick is refreshing. Beach does a good job at being a sheriff who walks the straight line and finds that always doesn't get the job done.

I honestly believe that this movie had great ideas, but should have taken things further. The car should have been built up over the course of the movie rather than only appear in the last half hour or so (a mistake that KR 2000 also made). The post-apocalyptic setting is cool, but the villains should have been fleshed out more. Having them be "cowboy era types" was not a problem, but they should have also been cybernetically augmented, much like their leader. The theme of humans and machines living side by side as opposed to united was interesting as well.

I always regret this show was not turned into at least a mini-series or series of movies like "Tekwar" was. It would have been interesting to see if they advanced the storyline more. Overall, a nice try.