Please review the new Knight Rider

[pmm217]

I would love to see a review of the Knight Rider movie that aired tonight. NBC crapped out the biggest piece of $&!* I think I have ever seen on TV. A review of the new Knight Rider could lead to the most hilarious TV segment in TRS history. I already had the lowest of the low expectations going in and sweet jesus it was even worse than I thought.

[gornstar]

I was really looking forward to this when they announced that Will Arnett would be doing the voice of K.I.T.T., other than Mr. Feeny himself I thought it was a good choice. Then he couldn't do it because of the conflict of interest with Chevy and Ford, so they picked up Val with a few weeks till show time and it really showed. I thought K.I.T.T. was the worst part other than the over all acting. The bulletproof effect and color changing/transforming didn't increase the bad-assness like it should have. I really hope this doesn't get picked up for series.

[esophagus]

I was really looking forward to this when they announced that Will Arnett would be doing the voice of K.I.T.T., other than Mr. Feeny himself I thought it was a good choice. Then he couldn't do it because of the conflict of interest with Chevy and Ford, so they picked up Val with a few weeks till show time and it really showed. I thought K.I.T.T. was the worst part other than the over all acting. The bulletproof effect and color changing/transforming didn't increase the bad-assness like it should have. I really hope this doesn't get picked up for series.None of thoe aforementioned problems with KITT had nothing to do with Arnett leaving. This was definitely just all around band.

[gornstar]

None of thoe aforementioned problems with KITT had nothing to do with Arnett leaving. This was definitely just all around band.

Right... I'm just saying that even though the rest of the show was bad it would still be worth it to hear Arnett as K.I.T.T., I don't think he's had the time to finish his degree in visual effects.

[scoobydiesel]

I didnt bother to even watch it and so far i dont regret it either.

[cooljammer00]

when does TRS tape?

[pmm217]

when does TRS tape?

Friday's I think, so if they didn't get an advance copy (I'm guessing no one did since I didn't see any early reviews for the movie) they could review it for next week's ep if they wanted to.

[kilroyperrywinkle]

As the voice of Kitt I can see Val doing okay. The way he spoke the lines was good, definitely not some smart ass computer voice like we're used to, but I actually bought it as a AI character, almost Vulcan like really.

The guy who plays Micheal was the real problem for me. Holy shit that guy's face looks under formed and gross. And I didn't buy one punch he threw. I'm all for cheese but if you can't sell the shitty lines you're getting pay to say, please just quit.

The girl was beautiful though, in that "Oooh you can tell I'm smart because I have glasses on!" - sort of way.

2 out of 5 for me.

But I'll hang around and see if it gets better, but unless they get a new actor for the main guy, or a whole revamp of the revamp, I can't see this going anywhere.

[pmm217]

12.9 million viewers last night, sounds like we might be seeing more of the new KN.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/02/extreme-makeo-1.html

[cooljammer00]

I still think it's an abomination that Will Arnett wasn't able to say "Michael!"

I would close my eyes, and imagine it was a scene from AD

[mltvcocktail]

I still think it's an abomination that Will Arnett wasn't able to say "Michael!"

I would close my eyes, and imagine it was a scene from AD

"It's not easy being white, it's not easy being brown."

[comhcinc]

i dug the show. the first 30 mins car chase was kinda boring but over all i like the story. i like the way they connected it to the original show and i like the fact that Arnett wasn't the voice of kitt because it is a different machine. the old one is the knight industry two thousand and the new one is the knight industry three thousand

[lstone]

I saw major flaws all over the place and I'm sure that the TRS guys will tear this thing up......but I pretty much enjoyed it. Although I would love to see the Will Arnett version, or at least an episode where Val Kilmer has more than a week to prepare for his lines

[tnvwboy]

For a movie (ok TV Movie) it was really weak on special effects. That stuff would have been cool 25 years ago but today it looked bad. The only special effect that I liked at all was the SUV smashing into KITT. That was pretty decent. The rest was just ugh!

The acting wasn't great but I didn't expect a lot there, so I was fine with it. The bad guys were very inconsistent in how evil they were and pretty much incompetent.

[kilroyperrywinkle]

I had forgotten about the SUV/Car thing... That was pretty cool. My wife actually did a little screech when it happen. All I said was "An hour! It took them an hour to get to that!?"

[tokenuser]

4 rooms.
3 bad guys.
1 good guy in a room.
1 good guy about to enter a room.
4 hands on door knobs opening said doors at same time trying to "build the suspense" ...

WORST DRAMATIC SCENE ON TV FOR 2008 (so far).

Val Kilmer - he was OK. The voice was believable for an AI ... but Mark Hamil would have been a better choice :)

If they take it to a series (probable), an interesting part is that with the ties to the FBI they might be able to do international stories. Notice the final shot as KITT reverses out of the back of a C130 (?) in Nondescriptistan? Cool - KITT on autobahns fighting bad guys in European cars at high speed.

Hangon ... FBI? FBI are fucking DOMESTIC intelligence, and have no foreign jurisdiction. They need ties to the CIA for that angle to work.

[tnvwboy]

but Mark Hamil would have been a better choice :)


Hangon ... FBI? FBI are fucking DOMESTIC intelligence, and have no foreign jurisdiction. They need ties to the CIA for that angle to work.

Mark Hamil makes any voice-over better. He's awesome. Maybe he can do the new version of K.A.R.R. with a Joker voice. heh ;)

FBI backing...yet another weakness. It was better when it was an independent Knight Industries organization.

[kickarse]

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS (read: if you care)*

Wow was this a nightmare. I had to watch it for the train wreck it was going to be. The acting was horrendous and the plot was without reason or thought.

To me it was a huge Ford commercial. EVERY car was a Ford or a ford owned company (Volvo). Any car that wasn't a ford had badges removed (the Chevy Suburban) or like the Toyota Camry they obviously shot the scene so it wouldn't show the front badge. Every commercial break there was at least one Ford commercial. There was only one other company that I recall doing Ad's which was either Kia or Hyundai. However, Ford owns stake in Kia and Hyundai too.

Some things didn't work like both guys jumping out of the way of KITT then the chick jumping in the car. Nobody seems to notice anything happening, like shooting at a University or a high speed getaway. When they were getting out the the HUGE ass motel room for some reason out the back window. Then when they rounded the corner there was a door about 10 feet away from the window they just got out of. Just idiotic stuff.

[tokenuser]

Some things didn't work like both guys jumping out of the way of KITT then the chick jumping in the car. Nobody seems to notice anything happening, like shooting at a University or a high speed getaway. When they were getting out the the HUGE ass motel room for some reason out the back window. Then when they rounded the corner there was a door about 10 feet away from the window they just got out of. Just idiotic stuff.Noqw that you put it like that it just dawned on me... it was a pretty accurate remake. Unlike BSG and Bionic Woman which reimagined the original series, Knight Rider picked up 20 years after where the old one left off.

[dstrack007]

I kinda like the idea of picking up where they left off as opposed to a "re-do"... I sort of enjoyed the "movie" especially when my wife and I saw our old buddy Jack Yang as one of the bad guys!!! Funny Stuff! My wife went to acting school with Jack years ago in California and I met and hung out with him many times - seen him in a few commercials and Law & Order type stuff... and now Knight Rider!!! Wowzers! I'll be hanging in to see what the rest of the show turns out to be like, but so far it's as cheesy as the original!

[damnedeyez]

Some things didn't work like both guys jumping out of the way of KITT then the chick jumping in the car. Nobody seems to notice anything happening, like shooting at a University or a high speed getaway. When they were getting out the the HUGE ass motel room for some reason out the back window. Then when they rounded the corner there was a door about 10 feet away from the window they just got out of. Just idiotic stuff.

The shooting can be explained with it being a hollywood silencer and him shooting a vehicle that didnt' get any bulletholes.

The back window made sense since she'd just shot a gun without anything to quiet it, alerting the bad guys who should've been heading towards the door (although, showing the head bad guy opening the door to the room he was checking out with the handle on the right, when they were in a room with the handle on the left seems like an obvious oversight...but then we knew they weren't going to pick the right rooms, even though that's just unlikely.) Nevermind that they get away from the guy sand go loiter around the car for a good while.


Oddly, my biggest complaint wasn't with the show, but the damned advertising over the NBC logo all throughout. Off to write a complaint about that stuff.

[j_mcdougald]

Jesus this was terrible, from beginning to end, on every single level. If the boys review this favorably I'm gonna be profoundly disappointed.

***SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT***

Considering it's yet another remake of something that was mildly popular approximately thirty thousand years ago, it's no surprise that the story is a mish-mash of crap recycled from countless other bad big-media creations:

We open with a kindly old genius inventor who gets killed for the secret technology he's developed. A large part of that research is KITT, an artificially intelligent super car. KITT escapes and using his super speed he goes to rescue the daughter Sarah--and of course the bad guys have magically beaten it there. Now Sarah is a genius just like her dad and we use glasses to establish that, but as soon as we have we get rid of those dorky specs and she's never seen wearing them again, despite apparently needing them to see. A laughably implausible and uninteresting escape later and KITT and Sarah are on the way to pick up the only guy who can help them: Mike Fucking Tracer. What fucking moron thought it would be a good idea to name him that? But it's cool because he's a lone wolf race-car-driving maverick that plays by his own rules, beds hot chicks two at a time and is an ex-army ranger. Is he brooding? You bet! He's disillusioned by his experience in the Iraqi war and now he doesn't believe in anything and actually tells us he can't be happy. Are you kidding me? Now we hook up with our hero and after another implausible battle (this time in a casino) Sarah, Mike Fucking Tracer and KITT escape together.

At this point you might be thinking: boy I hope there was some kind of past drama between Sarah and Mike Fucking Tracer. Fortunately for all of us there was! They were in love for a while but he left mysteriously and broke her heart. Hemingway would be proud.

With a hearty helping of massively over-wrought and redundant melodrama (including a heart-to-heart whilst the Brooder is urinating) our heroes head off back to dad's place to find some answers. Boy it's a good thing too because guess what: daddy's still alive! It was a body double that cashed out in the opening sequence! What an ingenious twist! Pops stumbles his way through the woods and breaks into a cabin (you know, instead of just knocking) and the cabins owner sneaks up on him with a shotgun! Oh no! Fear not viewers because it's Mike Fucking Tracers mom. In an embarrassingly predictable development the badguys are led straight to the motel where Mom and Dad go to hide out (because while our bad guys are total morons, they're still roughly seven thousand times smarter than our heroes) which sets up our final confrontation.

Now a quick word about our villians and their back story: They are the nefarious "Ravenwood"... I mean "Black River" mercenaries, a private security firm who go to places like Iraq to profit from the bloodshed. We know this because Jake... I mean Mike Fucking Tracer had some run-ins with them during the war. At this point I fear the constantly rising bile will soon dissolve my throat and decapitate me from the inside out.

Meanwhile Sarah and Mike Fucking Tracer get to the hotel and now have to rescue the folks, this is further complicated because KITT is being hacked! This leads us to believe that KITT isn't Mac-Powered for two reasons:

1. Macs don't get hacked and,
2. Macs don't actually do anything besides sit there and look pretty.

Oh wait, maybe it is a Mac. Soon enough all of our characters are gathered around KITT in a tense stand-off. Driving home the concept that many forms of retardation are passed on genetically, Mike Fucking Tracers mom gets herself killed for no logical reason at all. After taking away Dad, the others are left to be executed by two profoundly inept badguys. It's no suprise they are quickly and easily overpowered, and our heroes speed off in KITT to rescue Dad. By the way, the cars computers are shut off to keep out the hackers so it's just a regular super-car now. Good thing Mike Fucking Tracer is also a race car driver! In no time at all they catch up to the badguys and we get into our last car chase. But oh no! The bullet proofing nanobots are turned off! How could our heroes possibly survive this! In attempt to take out the bad guys they pull up right beside them and Sarah empties the clip of a machine gun at the driver. AND MANAGES TO NOT HIT THE ENTIRE VEHICLE ONCE, despite it being about two feet away from the end of the barrel. Note to Sarah: next time try wearing your glasses. For someone who's supposed to be a genius she's remarkeably inept at pretty much everything.

In a last-ditch effort to save Dad, our heroes switch KITT back on even though there's only ten seconds left on the big red hack-timer. But see, with KITT turned back on the car is now indestructible again and so they screech to a stop and let the baddies SUV crash into them. SUV hits them with terrific force and crumples like a tin can while KITT isn't even slightly budged by the impact. Apparently besides being able to change the cars colour and grow an extra fin, the nanobots can also completely defy the most basic laws of kinetic energy. Brilliant!

And somehow after all that it manages to get even dumber. I don't see how anyone with more than a functioning brain-stem could like this, unless you're looking for a laugh or something to do while smoking Meth and picking the skin off your arms.

[comhcinc]

i can not consider your critque seriously for two reason:


Considering it's yet another remake of something that was mildly popular approximately thirty thousand years ago, it's no surprise that the story is a mish-mash of crap recycled from countless other bad big-media creations: yeah it is a 25 year old show but you are either vastly misinformed or just plain out lying. knight rider was a HUGH show.

I don't see how anyone with more than a functioning brain-stem could like this, unless you're looking for a laugh or something to do while smoking Meth and picking the skin off your arms.
i really enjoyed this show so am i smoking meth?


look the the original show was great fun, but was never any good. it was corny and stupid and had giant plot holes. i know you remember it better, but i have most of the show on betamax and i love it but it's bad.

[tokenuser]

look the the original show was great fun, but was never any good. it was corny and stupid and had giant plot holes. i know you remember it better, but i have most of the show on betamax and i love it but it's bad.The best part about the new show? It stuck to the original premise, and was just as cheesey, with plot holes you could hide a TransAm in ... but it wont be KR until we see a turbo boost.

[comhcinc]

yeah i was waiting the whole time for that/

[tokenuser]

Since KITT was always limited to one turbo boost per episode (I assumed it was written into his contract), I had hoped that I might have missed it since I didn't see the first 30 min of the show.

I guess the alternative is that the new Mustangs just can't handle the landing, and (without the aid of cutting edge CGI) would crumple like a piece of tin foil - or a Suburban hitting a sports car at high speed.

[damnedeyez]

Obviously, they couldn't figure out how to do the turbo boost and keep it 'green'...then again, the car chases seemed rather slow as it was, so maybe KITT has a limiter.

[j_mcdougald]

i can not consider your critque seriously for two reasons....

Heh, I know it was popular, I'm 32 so I remember when it came out. While what I said may not be 100% accurate it sure felt good to say. Man this show was just baaaaaaad. There was 2 ways they could have saved it for me:

1. When they get to the hotel and KITT 2.0 is disabled KITT 1.0 arrives and they kick ass together. Not likely since I can almost guarantee they'll save KITT 1.0 for a tired KITT vs KITT rehash.

2. The bad guys would have hit the limo on the way to the funeral and killed everyone but Mike Tracer.

That *might* have redeemed it a bit. Otherwise it's another example of them taking the easy way out at every turn. Too bad, with the right writer this could have been phenomenal.

[comhcinc]

While what I said may not be 100% accurate it sure felt good to say..

so nothing you said can be trusted

[kickarse]

Since KITT was always limited to one turbo boost per episode (I assumed it was written into his contract), I had hoped that I might have missed it since I didn't see the first 30 min of the show.

I believe the Mustang GT500KR is supercharged. I could hear the whine. So it'd be hard to have turbo boost :P

And I also agree 100% completely with J_McDougald.

[tokenuser]

I believe the Mustang GT500KR is supercharged. I could hear the whine. So it'd be hard to have turbo boost :PI think that whine you heard was the actor playing Michael Traceur complaining about his career being flushed down the toilet.

And I also agree 100% completely with J_McDougald.Can that be trusted?

[bubbabubberson]

This show is still saved on my DVR and I haven't even begun to think about watching it. I just have so many great memories of the original from when I was a kid and I don't want them tainted.

Knight Rider and the A-Team. . . . I hope nobody is thinking about remaking the A-Team. That would be horrible.

[damnedeyez]

Knight Rider and the A-Team. . . . I hope nobody is thinking about remaking the A-Team. That would be horrible.

There's already been rumours about it and possible casting. At least, for a movie...whether there's any truth to that, who knows.

[kickarse]

I think that whine you heard was the actor playing Michael Traceur complaining about his career being flushed down the toilet.

Can that be trusted?

I think the whine was him starting out with two chicks and ending up with one at the end of the pilot.

[tnvwboy]

I just realized something that was terribly unbelievable. Worse than all the others...

A U.S. Muscle car that could take corners at high-speeds?? No way!!

;)

[bredrenisedp]

Saw this last night with a group of friends.... my god its awful awful awful.

It feels so cheap, the acting was piss poor, music was terrible, the action was lame, the camera shots (especially in car scenes) were student-like.

Having said that, I really enjoyed the experience, because for and hour and a bit I was pissing myself laughing at it.

Could this be a show so bad that its actually good to watch with friends?

[wideawakewesley]

Watched the pilot with my wife last night and thoroughly enjoyed it (and suprisingly so did she). I was totally expecting to hate it, but it actually hung together much better than I thought it would. Liked the characters, the script could have done with a little more work, but it was good overall. Val was weird to start with but really grew on me and KITT looks much better in action than I thought. The science is typically total b*llocks, but the scene with the van slamming into KITT was fantastic...now please give us Turbo Boost!!!

[elisa]

I watched the pilot and it was just terrible. I mean, there's cheesy and then there's unwatchable. But apparently it might actually come back as a series.

"Knight Rider." The February movie performed well for NBC. Sources say the network is in talks with a showrunner who is familiar with NBC primetime, which suggests a regular series order is likely.

link (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i0e7d8449d58e7ec155e38327b9792059)

*sigh*

Is this the fault of the writers' strike and the networks starving for any new material or good ratings because of the writers' strike? Because I cannot believe the show got good ratings on its own merit. I'm hoping they'll just kick it to the curb and forget about it. Or do some serious revamping and hire some decent writers for the show.

[damnedeyez]

Is this the fault of the writers' strike and the networks starving for any new material or good ratings because of the writers' strike? Because I cannot believe the show got good ratings on its own merit. I'm hoping they'll just kick it to the curb and forget about it. Or do some serious revamping and hire some decent writers for the show.

I think the problem is, people watched out of curiosity (and probably lack of something else on)...but leave it to networks to figure ratings=liked.

[j_mcdougald]

Is this the fault of the writers' strike and the networks starving for any new material or good ratings because of the writers' strike?

Well let's be honest, your average TV watching North American is pretty dumb. It's a very sad answer for your question, sorry. It'd be nice if they took all the good shows and put together a channel just for reasonably smart people. I just watched the latest episode of Smallville (kryptonite gum) and it was just atrocious. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Knight Rider the series wasn't just made, but made just as badly and was a huge success.