Review of Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013) by Phil P — 18 Sep 2013

"I'm ready".

Why did I watch this? why?. That's the first thing that came to mind once the film had finished. On Monday I watched 'White House Down' and even though I didn't like it there were some very mini highlights to be had. But all this has a pretty forest at the start, it gets progressively worse at the films goes on and I implore anyone not to watch it.

I'll start of the main body by saying it's not the actors fault the 'Banderas' is brilliant as 'Sir Clorex' and so is 'Saorise Ronan' as 'Talia', 'Freedie Highmore' is a bit iffy here and there but that's down to the poor script. It centers on 'Justin' (Highmore) a young man who wants to follow in his Granddad's footsteps and become an uncle. Of course his farther object and he goes off anyway to find a castle where he can learn the skills he requires. It's all done to quickly they try and play the sweet and emotion cards too quickly, within the first 10 minutes there's a 'sad' scene and an angry fist on the table. And that's by far the biggest problem the script doesn't flow, doesn't let the characters grow and come to a natural point where we could care about them. It follows the expected path, that's not necessarily a bad thing cliche doesn't mean bad but it doesn't seem to do it with sort of conviction. On occasion it promises something only for it to bring it down and shatter what it was building.

It looks fine, nothing out of this world but thankfully (sand something I feared) it would look a little cheap but it doesn't. The characters typify the usual design philosophies, settings are well lit and one or two designs stand out (the crocodile dragon for example). Again 'Kandoor graphics' can't really be faulted sure it could be better but what it has is great regardless.

As I said it all comes down to the script, animated films don't always need a good one but this isn't bad this is down right atrocious. The dialogue is boring, flat and dull the characters motivations are thin and it doesn't create anything remotely exciting. The CGi may be fine and the acting good but it doesn't just get dragged down by the story it's plummeted beyond all hope.