What a shame, Brian, now you never get your chance!

OK, let's be clear on one thing. This is *not* a good movie. It's actually one of the worst, most ridiculous and illogical movies ever made. Not even the famous actors can save it: James Mason, Sam Neill, Olivia Hussey and John Rhys-

Davies. The plot makes absolutely no sense, and probably isn't even based on the novel. It's too long and too tedious, and all characters are grossly stereotyped.

So why did I give it five stars, then?

Because I live in Sweden, that's why!

In Sweden, "Ivanhoe" is a pop culture phenomenon. Swedish television shows the movie every year, on New Year's Day. It's virtually an unofficial Christmas holiday tradition. When the public service network stopped showing it, one of the cabel channels bought the rights, and continued airing it, on the same date. Almost everyone in Sweden watches this long and tedious movie, eats snacks, comments on the silly costumes and weird characters, and remembers most of the lines by heart. I know I do!

My favorite part of the movie is the tournament at Ashby where "the disinherited knight" meats the "three noble challengers" (the bad guys). What the crooks don't know is that the nerdie "disinherited knight" is actually the elite warrior Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who just returned home from the crusades. After the usual insults, all the evil knights are easily defeated by the valiant Ivanhoe. Although Ivanhoe is the supposed main character of the movie, he actually plays a minor role in the plot, fighting the crooks only at the very beginning of the story, and at the very end (when he takes on "the knights of the Holy Temple", a bunch of Nazi-like characters with a penchant for witch-burning). The Jewish woman Rebecca, her father Isaac, the evil knight Brian Guilbert and Robin Hood are more important characters. Personally, I just love to laugh at some of the minor characters: the fool Wamba, the noble Athelstone (who is actually a worthless bum), the fat and phoney friar Tuck, and the narrow-minded bigot Cedric, who also happens to be Ivanhoe's father.

I find the movie entertaining, and since I more or less grew up with it, I wouldn't want to miss it for the world! But no, it doesn't *really* deserve five stars, LOL.