Justin and the Knights of Valour

Justin and the Knights of Valour
More like How To Train Your Dragon: Knights Addition.
Directed by: Manuel Sicilia Written by: Matthew Jacobs Manuel Sicilia

Justin and the Knights of Valour (also known as Justin y la espada del valor)is a Computer-Animated Fantasy movie created by Aliwood Mediterráneo, Producciones, Kandor Graphics and Out of the Box Features. It was released in 2013.

Plot

Justin lives in the kingdom of Gabylonia and dreams of becoming a Knight of Valour like his grandfather, Sir Roland. Unfortunately, knights were outlawed and replaced by lawyers after the King's death. Justin's father Reginald, the Queen's Chief Lawyer, grew to hate knights following Roland's death and insists Justin become a lawyer. Justin notices that Roland's sword is missing and decides to go on a quest to find it. His grandmother Lilly tells him to go to the Tower of Wisdom to receive training. Before departing Justin visits his crush, Lara, a spoiled nobleman's daughter, hoping to receive a token of luck. Lara is so self-absorbed she barely notices him and gives him a dirty sock which Justin swears to return after completing his quest.

Justin heads to the traditional quest starting point, the Broken Eagle Inn, but finds it has become a fast food restaurant. There he meets weary barmaid Talia, and talentless wizard Melquiades. Justin attempts to defend Talia from the inn's bullying guards, Igor and Slamski, causing her to develop a crush on him.

Sir Heraclio, the knight who killed Justin's grandfather, returns from exile and recruits an army of criminals to seek retribution on the Queen and Reginald for outlawing knights. The Queen fears she made a mistake outlawing knights as there is no-one to defend the kingdom. Clorex, an armour polisher and opportunistic thief, overhears the Queen and steals armour to pose as a knight. Styling himself Sir Clorex he begins residing at the Broken Eagle, charging customers money for his autograph. Talia is threatened by her boss to keep quiet as Clorex is good for business.

Justin finds the tower and trains with monks Braulio and Legantir and knight Sir Blucher. Blucher informs Justin that Heraclio stole his grandfather's sword after killing him. For his final test Justin must face a dragon, but as dragons are extinct he faces Gustav, an alligator fitted with mechanical wings and flamethrower. The test goes wrong and Justin is near-fatally injured. The monks end the training early and send Justin home but Blucher gives Justin his sword.

Justin returns to the Broken Eagle to see Talia. Igor and Slamski eagerly start another fight with Justin. Tired of Clorex and the Inn Talia helps Justin defeat them and quits her job. However, she is disheartened when she learns that Justin has feelings for Lara.

At Lara's coming-of-age party Justin finds Lara has fallen in love with Clorex. Heraclio's men attempt to kidnap Lara for ransom, but they are scared away by Clorex who they believe to be a real knight. Having embarrassed himself and failed as a knight Justin returns home with his father. Wanting the ransom money Clorex kidnaps Lara and delivers her to Heraclio. Talia finds Justin preparing to go to university to become a lawyer and informs him of Lara's kidnapping. Determined to do the right thing Justin decides to rescue Lara and Reginald finally accepts Justin's decision to become a knight.

Melquiades leads Justin and Talia to Heraclio's hideout, where they find Lara. Seeing Justin fight Lara develops a crush on him. Justin and Talia are surrounded but decide to fight to the end with Justin admitting he is happy Talia came with him. Blucher arrives in time with Gustav who scares away the army while Blucher duels Heraclio. Talia confronts Clorex with his cowardice and lies and defeats him in a fist fight. Heraclio wounds Blucher before duelling Justin. Justin succeeds in disarming Heraclio and recovering his grandfathers sword. Heraclio is almost victorious but Justin sends him falling from a waterfall to his death.

The Queen knights Justin as Sir Justin and both she and Reginald decide to re-establish the knights. Lara passes out when, rather than propose to her, Justin keeps his promise and returns her dirty sock in front of the entire kingdom. He then asks Talia to continue coming on adventures with him as he has fallen in love with her and she accepts by kissing him.

At their tower Braulio, Legantir and Blucher erect a statue of Justin next to the statue of his grandfather and unveil a new hall awaiting the statues of the next generation of knights.

Why It's Not a Knight of Valour

1. For obvious starters, Justin and the Knights of Valour is a complete rip-off of the Dreamworks film, How To Train Your Dragon, right down to both the plot and even some of the characters being the same.
   1. Justin is a rip-off of Hiccup, both are a skinny teen who's an out-cast in his society.
   2. Talia is a rip-off of Astrid, both are the tough and more mature women with a good heart that the protagonist falls in love with later on in the film.
   3. Reginald is a rip-off of Stoick, both are the father's of the main protagonist who has a plane for them but do not want to live by it.
   4. Al-tho not nearly as similar, Heraclio could be considered a rip-off of Red Death, both serves as the main antagonist who threatens the main characters.
2. Unlikable, bland and annoying characters, some of which are rip-offs of characters from previous media.
   1. Justin is your stereotypical "main character with a kind-heart who wants to be like his/her "insert type of Family Member" and does not want to be in that other Family Member(s)' shoes" that has been done multiple times, and as stated in the first part of the #1 Segment, is also a rip-off of Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon.
   2. Talia is your generic "tough women with a good heart that the protagonist falls in love with later on in the film".
   3. Melquiades is a bland comic-relive who constantly talks and screams to himself due to him having MPD.
   4. Braulio and Legantir are bland supportive characters that don't do much for the plot.
   5. Lara is a stereotypical snoopy princess that acts cruel to Justin despite the latter having a crush on her.
   6. Reginald is an unlikable father who acts way too strict to Justin, and a generic "I want my son to be like me"-type Father Character that has been done in previous media, additionally he's also a rip-off of Stork, also from How To Train Your Dragon.
   7. Clorex is a blatant rip-off of Gastion from Beauty & The Beast, in that he's a generic jerk-face who is obsessed with women and money, and also despite the amount of screen-time he has(even more so then the villains ironically), Clorex barely impacts the film's narrative what-so-ever, you can easily remove him from the film and the plot would be the same.
   8. Sota is an incredible annoying secondary antagonist who is a rip-off of Kefka from Final Fantasy and is an LGBTQ+ stereotype, not help by the fact that he's voice by Rubert Everett(Best known for his voice as Prince Charming from the Shrek series), who's an Actor that's also an LGBTQ+.
3. VERY BAD First Impression: The very first thing Justin and the Knights of Valour starts off with is a scene were a random Guard Knight snatches a little girl's kitten from her arms and throws it in a cage(albeit temporarily before Justin released/rescues the kitten from the cage and gives it back to the girl before accidentally knocking out the Guard Knight with a bread-stick). You know....for kids!
4. While decent, the animation takes pages from Illumination Entertainment by having a plethora of motion blur, and it makes Justin and the Knights of Valour somewhat hard to watch.
5. There are multiple Plot-Holes though out the film that never gets answered:
   1. Reginald's whole reason for him to hate Knights and not wanting Justin to be a Knight is all due to what happen to his father Roland after he was killed by Heraclio, who was previously a Knight.
   2. What happen to Justin's mother?
   3. Despite not liking her job, why does Talia still work at the Broken Eagle Inn?
   4. After the incident with the war which is what killed the King, the Queen(the King's wife) deceits to not only have Knights be outlawed, but also have Reginald make almost everything illegal so that all crimes would stop due to the after mention Knights being outlawed as to avoid any more fighting that coasted her husband's life, except for the fact that it can cause even more crimes for the tinniest little things that anyone does and ect, the film even starts off with people getting tickets and/or getting arrested due to how many laws there are, and as stated in the #3 segment, one of the Guard Knights even snatches a little girl's kitten from her arms and throws it in a cage!!!
      1. This part of the plot-hole leads to another part of the plot-hole that's major, why would Reginald and the Queen have the Knights, which are their ONLY sources of protection, be outlawed? (The fact that the Queen even said early on in the film "Without Knights we are defenseless Lilly I...(sigh) I fear I made a big mistake.", which even references that plot-hole, you can tell that the writers had no idea how to implement that arc.)
   5. Why does Melquiades have MPD?
   6. How is the Tower of Wisdom, which is a training ground for people who want to become Knights, still open even tho Knights are Outlawed?
   7. What happen to all of the Dragons?
   8. Why does no one at the Broken Eagle Inn call out Talia's boss for not only physically harming Talia, but also sends his brutes to beat up Justin?
   9. What happens to Talia's boss after Talia quits her job?
   10. Heraclio is considered an evil villain because he wants to be king and kill people, when that's the ENTIRE point of being a Knight.
   11. How are there french fries in the Medieval Ages even tho those weren't invented until 1789?
   12. How the heck does everybody blindly believes Clorex to be a Knight when he clearly was an Armour Polisher and opportunistic thief?
6. Trailers for Justin and the Knights of Valour do a very poor job at show casing the film, not to mention the songs that play feel out-of-place and sound more like something out of the mid-90s.
   1. Specking of which, marking for Justin and the Knights of Valour is very poor all things considered, as there are only TWO trailers before this film's released, and its because of this, a lot of people were actually unaware of the movie's existence, which also explains by it flop in its Box Art, similar Ivan The Incredible, an even worst film made last year.
7. Mean spirited moments, such as the people getting arrested for no reason what-so-ever early in the film and Justin being treated like a butt-monkey though out most of the film.
8. Constant, constant, CONSTANT repeat of how the Knights got outlawed, Reginald hates the Knights and ect, they even repeat that part during the backstory.
9. Odd Character designs, some of which also rip off characters from other media, Justin literary looks like a Hiccup with red hair.
10. Laughable names for some of the characters, one example is the main villain, who name is Heraclio.
11. Gross out moments though out the film, special mention goes to the scene were Melquiades throws his spit-snot into Talia's Boss' beer, and the Boss drinks it.
12. Poor pacing though out the film, some moments happens way too fast, while other times it happens way too slow.
13. Much like The Magic Voyage, this film is SUPER dialogue happy, and as such characters never shut up.
14. Very confusing on what tone Justin and the Knights of Valour is suppose to be for, despite its kid friendly art-style and nature, it has many graphical moments that feel very out-of-place.
15. The character portrayal is very poor, the Queen is treated as a hero despite making things worst for her kingdom, and despite Heraclio being the main villain, he's doing nothing evil or greedy, and aside from him killing Justin's grandfather, he does nothing major until the final battle.
16. The first part of ending credits' song(Titled "Heroes" by Rebecca Knighted), while beautiful composed and fitting for this film's theme of heroes, sounds very out-of-place and does not fit the ecstatic with Justin and the Knights of Valour, and sounds more like something out of a heart-warming Walt Disney movie.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Despite the Motion Blur, the animation is solid.
2. There are some funny moments here-and-there.
3. Some likable characters like Blucher and Lilly.
   1. Despite them being rip-offs, Justin and Talia are also likable.
4. While his name is laughable, Heraclio is a very imitating antagonist.
5. The voice acting is pretty good.
6. The ending is beautiful, and rather touching.

Reception

Justin and the Knights of Valour received negative reviews, criticizing the writing, characters and pacing, though the voice acting and music received praise. It flopped at the box-office only grossing $19 million off of a $30 million budget. Rotten Tomatoes reported a 13% approval rating for the film with an average rating of 3.93/10 based on 15 reviews.

Possible Sequel

A sequel to Justin and the Knights of Valour is announced, but it's status is unknown, all of the cast reprise their roles from the first one such as Freddie Highmore, Saoirse Ronan, Alfred Molina, James Cosmo and Julie Walters.

The sequel will be made sometime. Antonio spoke to Dakota that he would reprise his role in the future. He said that "If there was the possibility to do another movie about Justin, and he continues to be a character in that, he could be a little bit better. He probably has learnt something from this movie.", tho as of September 8, 2024, there are no official updates on the film.

Possible Spin-off

A spin-off film about Talia was also announced but also in the works. The original cast reprise their roles including Freddie Highmore, Saoirse Ronan, Alfred Molina, James Cosmo, Julie Walters, David Walliams, Charles Dance, Barry Humphries, Olivia Williams and Tamsin Egerton. Newcomers for the spin-off film include John Cleese, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Helen Mirren, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Cate Blanchett, Hugh Jackman, Hugo Weaving, Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Frances De La Tour, Eddie Marsan, Sam Claflin, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, Michael Gambon, David Schwimmer, Tom Baker and Joel Edgerton. This film is set for release in the summer. Much like it's possible sequel, as of September 8, 2024, there are no official updates on the Spin-off.