Trial by Combat

An awkward line-up of stars adds little lustre to this tediously derivative, vaguely black comedy. The plot, cobbled together by several writers who seem to have been set to produce an Avengers spin-off, revolves creakingly around the attempts of an eccentric, unflappable ex-policeman (Mills) to link a series of underworld killings to an upper-crust fancy-dress society of knights (led by Pleasence), originally dedicated to the ideals of medieval chivalry. The action sequences - on which all attention is presumably meant to focus in compensation for the numbing silliness of the rest of the movie - consist of knights on horseback, brandishing lances, chasing a car across country in hopes of impaling an East End villain (Glover), plus interminable clanking sword fights, the last of which ends with Pleasence impaled on his own portcullis.