Knight Rider – TV/Movie Review

I thought that writing my rather scathing review of Attack Force might have gotten a bit of the nasty out of my system.  I mean, lets face it, the vast majority of the stuff I review on this site is looked at because I actually want to see it, or play it, or whatever.  Sure, there’s the occasional chick flick with the missus, or a game that wound up being disappointing, but on the whole I’ve been fairly positive because I actually have some taste.

Then along came John.  John (or Stenchlord, as he is known online) is a bit of a TV connoisseur, downloading various shows and movies (completely legally, of course) to partake of in his free time.  Thanks to Mr Stenchlord, I am frequently exposed to television shows that I would otherwise have never bothered with.  Some of these, like Heroes or The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I am immensely grateful for having the opportunity to watch; others, like the new Knight Rider pilot, ensure that I will curse him with my dying breath, come back and haunt him, and then curse him some more.

The latest in a long line of attempts to revive Knight Rider, this latest TV movie/backdoor pilot somehow manages to make efforts like Team Knight Rider and Knight Rider 2000 seem like awesome examples of quality television shows, instead of the awesomely bad craptacular shitefests that they were.  In fact, this latest effort is so incredibly bad that it is almost, ALMOST worth watching just to see if it could possibly get any worse; for the record, I don’t think it could.

The plot (I use the term loosely) revolves around the cunningly titled “BlackRiver” mercenary company attempting to steal the codes to access some Department of Defence program to start World War 3 or some such.  They rock up at the old man (Charles Graiman, played by Bruce Davison) in charge of the project’s house; he keels over; they steal things, and then go after his genius daughter, Sarah (played terribly by Deanna Russo).  Of course, the old bloke had created the new KITT, now a brad-spanking-new Mustang, and the car goes off to rescue said daughter.  Along the way there’s an ex-Army Ranger named Mike Traceur and an FBI Agent (played by Sidney Poitier’s daughter; the old man would be flipping somersaults in his grave if he were dead) that is a lesbian seemingly for the sole purpose of attracting the teenage male demographic.

This two hour epic of complete bollocks is simply riddled with glaring plot holes, poor dialogue, shocking acting, and a just-plain-stupid script.  The old man isn’t actually dead; it’s his body double, who offered to stay behind and distract the mercenaries so that the real article could escape.  Naturally, rather than fleeing to his hyper-intelligent, invulnerable car which is parked in a garage five meters away, he instead feels that sending the car off by itself while he flees into a forest is the right move; for that matter, why didn’t he and the body double both flee to the car with the hard drives? They had plenty of time.

The main characters, upon meeting the AI-powered Mustang, immediately fall into deep and meaningful conversations with it about their emotional difficulties, despite the fact they are only just meeting a TALKING CAR FOR THE FIRST FREAKING TIME.  The bad guys chasing the pair, despite being equipped with only a Ford 4WD, routinely keep up with a high-powered super-Mustang; even more amusingly, they will randomly use a helicopter, despite seemingly having no time to actually go and acquire it during the incredibly long, dull car chases.

And the dialogue, oh the dialogue!  When the cameo by original Knight Rider David Hasselhoff is the highlight of both the dialogue and acting in your show, it’s pretty much time to call it a day in the TV biz I think.  Every line of the show is a clunker, and every performance a stinker, even from veteran actor Bruce Davison, who should have known better than to be associated with this tripe.

The saddest part about the whole sorry affair is that this show is actually an embarrassment to the original Knight Rider; the original 1980s series wasn’t great television by any means, but at least it had some decent special effects for the time and a kind of cool concept.  The new version has special effects which are, by today’s standards, absolutely terrible; KITT and its cool abilities was always going to be the only saving grace for this show, and el-cheapo CGI hardly helps accomplish this.  Furthermore, the choice of replacing the old KITT with a chunky muscle car was simply stupid; I love the Mustang, but it just looks inappropriate here.  Even so, the car is still the highlight for the simple reason that it’s fast, cool looking, and it’s robotic, monotone voice nonetheless delivers the best acting of the whole piece.

NBC really dropped the ball with Knight Rider.  Sure, it was never going to be the greatest show on earth, but a decent attempt could have at least made for a show that wasn’t terrible to watch.  Instead, we got this absolute travesty of television, which manages to make La Femme Nikita look Emmy-worthy.  Poor acting, poor writing, poor visuals, and plot holes so wide that KITT could powerslide through them with room to spare makes this one o the worst shows you will ever see. 

In short, I heartily recommend Knight Rider to everyone; this pilot is so incredibly terrible that it makes for stunningly compelling viewing.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll probably cry some more at this textbook example of how not to make a television show.  Terribad.

                 

I rate Knight Rider: 1/10 (The 1 point is for having a nice car in the show, even if it is otherwise completely inappropriate.  Everything about this pilot is subpar; simply appalling television.)

   

- Tim Sweeney

     

What the hell were they thinking (Spoilers)?!

 

• I just have to ask; why do they keep running from the mercenaries throughout this show when the car is bulletproof?
• For that matter, why don’t they just run them over?
• Why did the old man flee through the forest instead of jumping straight into his intelligent, invulnerable car?
• Where do the mercenaries keep getting that helicopter from, and why don’t they use it when they actually need it?
• If KITT can change colour, but is otherwise the only Mustang on the road, why don’t the mercenaries take a look anyway; especially considering the fact that the silver Mustang, just like KITT, has NO DRIVER BEHIND THE WHEEL.
• Why does the FBI Agent, upon receiving a secretive phone call saying that the old guy is actually alive, feel that the best thing to do is put the phone on speaker in front of a stranger she had only just met?
• Why is the mercenary team made up of Ubiquitous Villain Stereotypes? Ruthless Englishman? Check. Tech-savvy geek, complete with granny glasses? Check. Thrill-hungry Asian driver? Check. Gigantic Black muscle? Check. Where’s the cold-blooded German and the alcoholic Scotsman?
• Why does KITT’s special nanotechnology skin stop the car from moving at all when smashed into by a truck? Last I checked, nanotech didn’t fix the laws of physics.
• How does a basic 4WD manage to routinely keep up with, and often overtake, a Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang?
• Why does Traceur’s mum decide to pull her gun out in the most obvious possible way, giving the enemy something along the lines of four decades to decide to shoot her first?
• Why does Traceur, upon being told that he owes 90,000 dollars, start looking down the back of his couch for money? That’d be some amount of change!
• If the old guy and his daughter are the only two people that can crack the encryption on Prometheus, and the old guy is ‘dead’, then isn’t it kind of superfluous for the mercenaries to constantly threaten to kill the daughter? What are they going to do after she’s dead, call it quits?
• What possible purpose does establishing the hot FBI Agent as a lesbian serve, except to say “Look at me, I’m a lesbian boys!”
• Why does having been an Army Ranger in “EYE-RACK” make Traceur a bonafide ninja?
• Why would anyone think that this show was a good idea?