A Knight's Tale

Columbia is counting on this medieval adventure -- the story of a charismatic squire (''The Patriot'''s Ledger) who impersonates a knight and becomes a master jouster -- to emerge as a summer blockbuster. The ingredients are certainly there: a rising young star, a playful love story, and plenty of action scenes, scored, strangely, to such classic rock songs as Queen's ''We Will Rock You'' and Thin Lizzy's ''The Boys Are Back in Town.''

''The idea is that it's running a parallel between sporting life back then and today,'' explains Ledger, though the artistic license appears to be polarizing audiences. ''When we tested it,'' says Helgeland (who cowrote ''L.A. Confidential''), ''most people dug it, but the people that didn't like it really didn't like it.'' They should, however, love Ledger. ''He's had a lot dumped on him for a guy who just read the script and thought it'd be a fun movie,'' says Helgeland. ''Cut to a year later and the fate of the movie is, in some ways, put on his shoulders.''

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