THE BLACK KNIGHT

In this hip-hop cinematic update of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (a long, long time ago the indomitable Bing Crosby covered the same territory), Martin Lawrence plays a modern-day hack who falls through a portal and nds himself in medićval times. The title is explained as a reference to a legendary knight in black armor, though there’s an obvious — and unfortunate — play on our hero’s ethnicity.

Lawrence’s Jamal Walker is a theme-park hand going nowhere in 2001, but as Sir Skywalker in 14th-century England, his Sly and the Family Stone riffs and streetwise wit ingratiate him with a dubious king (Kevin Conway) and make him a coveted agent of espionage to an exiled queen. He thwarts an ill-boding alliance with Normandy by accidentally sleeping with the king’s not so virginal daughter; later he teams up with a drunken knight (Tom Wilkinson of The Full Monty) — who nearly gets his face rubbed in shit — to lead a ragtag mass of rebels against their oppressive monarchy. The humor is scant yet barbed, be it the Al Sharpton motivational speech or the contemporary innuendoes about “getting busy.” Lawrence does his best to carry the load, but director Gil Junger (Ten Things I Hate About You) and a battalion of screenwriters have catapulted their jive-talking star into a barren efdom.

— Tom Meek