Subject: Retrospective: High Crusade, The (1994)

From: Dragan Antulov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 02:02:44 -0000

THE HIGH CRUSADE (1994)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2001

Roland Emmerich might be criticised of many things, but
lacking enthusiasm for his films is not one of them.
Unfortunately, although enthusiasm often happens to be one
of the major ingredients of success, it is never the only
one. In case of Emmerich, his constant efforts to realise
childhood dream of toping STAR WARS and making the best
science fiction film of all times never produced desired
results. Emmerich failed even when satisfying with the role
of producer, like in the case of THE HIGH CRUSADE, 1994
German science fiction directed by Klaus Knoesel and Holger
Neuh"user.

Failure of this film was especially painful for the fans of
Poul Anderson, whose popular 1960 novel was the basis for
the script. The plot begins in the year 1345 in England,
when the group of English noblemen led by Sir Roger of
Jernyngham (played by Rick Overton) just begins to prepare
to go on the crusade and liberate Holy Land from the
Muslims. In the midst of their preparations, an alien
spaceship lands and attacks their castle. However, it turns
out that even the technologically superior aliens aren't
good match for the sheer brutality of medieval knights - Sir
Roger and his men manage not only to repeal the attack but
also to take control of the ship. Crusaders, equipped with
this miracle of alien technology, want to go to Jerusalem
and fulfil their mission but the crusade they are going to
take part would lead them much further.

The basic concept of the original novel - first contact
between medieval knights and extraterrestrials - probably
looked quite silly to the filmmakers, so they decided to
make film into comedy. Unfortunately, they also believed
that the concept would be not only silly but also funny
enough to make audience laugh throughout the whole movie.
This was not the case, partly because the whole concept had
one important flaw - humour based on cultural clash didn't
connect with the modern audiences. For them both the
extraterrestrials and the medieval knights were equally
alien. So THE HIGH CRUSADE ended like a disorganised and not
very funny mix of MONTY PYTHON AND HOLY GRAIL, LES
VISITEURS, at times very impressive special effects and not
very convincing aliens. The general impression of film is
somewhat improved thanks to the very good cast (although at
times underused, like in the case of MTV's host Jay Cokes)
led by John Rhys-Davies who is very good in the role of
Brother Parvus. However, THE HIGH CRUSADE is nevertheless
hardly anything more than often boring and incredibly
unfunny farce and another proof that good literature seldom
results in good films.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

Review written on September 22nd 2001

Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
E-mail: [email-masked]
http://www.film.purger.com -
Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian

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X-RT-RatingText: 3/10