Child actors of the early '90s understood chutzpah, you know? The newsies gyrated, the Cucamonga campers jived, and even the Tonka-tough Little Leaguers burst with starpower. Case in point, Thomas Ian Nicolas, the future American Pie and Please Give costar, bounds into Camelot with Louisville Slugger confidence in A Kid in King Arthur's Court, the kiddie flick from '94 that also features two of Cowboys & Aliens's best attributes: a hokey mashup of disparate eras and -- oh yes -- Daniel Craig.
We're taking it easy this week with Bad Movies We Love after edition's Black Swan bloodbath. Please indulge our arousal for Nickelodeon-era nostalgia. A Kid in King Arthur's Court is based on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court because Hollywood understands that 8-year-olds love 19th-century societal satire. Nicholas plays Calvin Fuller, a Little Leaguer with a sorry batting stance who is whisked away to Camelot during an earthquake. He didn't cry like I would've. I lived for post-game Koala Yummies and CapriSun! 1995 sucked without those.
As usual, I'll break down this non-gem into five winning attributes. Let's thrust Excalibur into that great stone of whatever!
5. Wasting no time with the nonsense!
I hate when a fantasy film takes awhile to justify a supernatural plot. We don't care. I don't want to watch you pace around the library for a half hour in The Pagemaster, Macaulay. I just want the books to start talking like Whoopi Goldberg. A Kid in King Arthur's Court takes -- I'm not lying -- four minutes to send Thomas Ian down the mystical crevasse. His baseball game isn't even over yet. We didn't even get to meet his parents, who are undoubtedly played by downtrodden character actors. Nope, it's just King Arthur, his Monty Python and the Holy Grail set pieces, and Toys 'R Us kid charm. Thanks, movie.
Click to 5:00 to watch the Earth crack open and experience (what sounds like) gastrointestinal hell.
4. Playskool Camelot is home to that six-time Oscar nominee you like.
Princess Sarah may seem like a typical monarch canted glamorously over a joust at Medieval Times, but she's much more. In fact, she's Kate Winslet. In fact, that is astounding. Winslet had already starred in Heavenly Creatures by this point, earning herself a BAFTA Award and the promise of an august career. Here, she stares incredulously at Calvin and declares him "our honored visitor from Reseda!" Oh, Kate. Your Academy Award for The Reader is still so far away in '95. And so is your look here, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Adele. I think we can all agree this is her best period piece. Ha ha, joke. She wasn't in any others!
3. Joss Ackland accidentally turns in a very good performance.
Memo to Mr. Ackland, who plays King Arthur: You were not supposed to bring thespian prowess to this picture. You don't see Kate Winslet wearing her award-baiting Revolutionary Road scowl, do you? Please. You're supposed to make eye-rolly jokes about Reseda and fade into nothing. Don the royal robe, cash the scale paycheck. Fin. Instead, you defied this movie's goofiness and made the stale Arthur character a delightful comrade with avuncular charm.
2. Daniel Craig
Hard to believe Daniel Craig ever looked differently than he does now, which is to say the fearsome lovechild of Edie Falco and Dhalsim, but he was once a bowl-cut aficionado during the Lillehammer Olympics era of '94-'95. Alarming! Now he's all grown up, starring in ghost stories and dueling with aliens -- but he's most adorable in this movie. If teaching the art of the lance to a child in baseball garments isn't "paying your dues," I don't want to know what is. Wait, nevermind. There's Kate Winslet in a green velour dress.
1. Thomas Ian Nicholas is rookie of the century!
While he'd move on to cinematic milestones like receiving oral sex from Tara Reid in American Pie and idolizing Kip Pardue in The Rules of Attraction, Thomas Ian Nicholas displays a canny, old-school child star affability that is sorely lacking in today's talent. Elle Fanning? She is too smart and blue-eyed. Justin Bieber? He is nominated for Grammys because he does silly things with a comb and belongs in the Pokédex. Thomas Ian takes the wide-eyed fun of his Rookie of the Year character and unabashedly embraces the adventure in this tale. When he teaches roller-blading to the fair Princess Katey, he beams with cartoonish pride. Kind of like when Aladdin thinks he's teaching Jasmine how to pole-vault across rooftops, but she's already good at it for some reason.