Here it is most deserved. Knight Rider is by no means sacred material, the original was cheesier and made on a far smaller budget, yet surpasses this waste of time.
Being a lifelong Knight Rider fan and critic, I could tell you all the ways this was unfaithful and disingenuous to the original. As a TV fan, I could spend a lot of time telling you that the production and direction are hopeless, the writing is awful and full of plot holes (how exactly are these villains beating the 200mph car everywhere?), or that the acting is unbelievably poor (you're in trouble when Hasselhoff's cameo is the best acting in the show). But all that I will spare to get down to brass tacks: what's really wrong with this Knight Rider are 3 fundamental problems, the 3 C's - conceptualization, casting, and the car.
The concept behind this doesn't work, there are too many players on the hero team, many of which feel completely extraneous, and too many interrelationships. It doesn't lay down a solid foundation and gives an incredibly overreaching threat. While trying to modernize Knight Rider, it's almost funny that they've unintentionally ripped off 2 other TV shows, "Viper" and the unpopular "Team Knight Rider", at the same time and done neither particularly well. Yes, there is more money poured into this, the visual effects are of a higher quality (though the fx is still surprisingly weak), but there's just nothing behind this, it's quite empty and doesn't really get to the point until its second ending, a final act that completely flops.
The casting's problem is likely with the conceptualization really, as Mike Traceur is unlikeable and fairly generic as a character. But they just cast the character too young and too flat. He doesn't stand for anything, he's just a tall, unimposing kid in a leather jacket, not remotely impressive.
Finally the car, which should be the star of the show, came off totally uninteresting - an intensely fatal flaw. The Mustang was a poor choice for KITT, it's aggressive instead of sleek, and lacks that slight futuristic quality the car should have had. I know Ford put money into this, but I wish they had used a different sporty car... oh wait, Ford doesn't MAKE another sporty car right now!
In the show, KITT is essentially a talking version of the supercar from "Viper" without the good looks or cool toys, it just changes color and morphs into super mode, but this Mustang supercar is somewhat boring to look at. The pimpin' wheels are not very Knight Rider, and the double-spoiler is downright embarrassing. So what else does it have then? Extra large intakes and a blocked grille, big deal. Oh, and it changes color twice, whoopee. They hyped that this KITT was designed by the creator of the movie Batmobile, what they don't focus on is the fact that the movie was "Batman & Robin" and it was easily the most forgettable Batmobile ever created, lacking all the heart and soul that makes a star car special - just as this new KITT suffers. Even the interior of KITT is bland, right down to the pathetic single computer touchscreen in the center console, way to suck the life out of Knight Rider, that crazy dash and all those buttons were so awesome back in the day, but it's all gone now. KITT's moving lightbars for when he talked? Replaced with a standard blobby line, the kind you could see in an old version of Windows Media Player and Sound Recorder. Glen Larson's legendary red sweeping scanner has been rendered boring here with a dull glow in the nose intakes which moves symmetrically.
The morphing into battle mode is done through CGI, but it's incredibly dull, not remotely as inspired as either version on "Viper", here the car simply has little tiny blocks appear and build out the extra bits in an unconvincing manner. We also get a few looks at how the car deals with invulnerability through slow-mo shots of bullets impacting and then fixing, throwing out the previous Knight Rider tech that was far less complex and didn't create such a gaping plot device when the car's computer goes offline. The concept has been seen before in other projects, quite often really and with far more effective means, and to be honest this nanotech concept still reeks no matter where it's used.
But the biggest issue with the car is it doesn't DO anything! Sure, it auto-drives in a few lackluster chase scenes, and KITT talks about all the satellite-tracking and computer mumbo jumbo he can do, but we really don't see it, and most of that cyber stuff is played out at this point. You know what KITT did really well back in the day? Turbo boost. KITT's aerial acrobatics that came 3/4ths into every episode were a huge source of entertainment. Ski mode on 2 wheels was good too. Showing the cool scanning going on, video conferencing with Bonnie in her sexy jumpsuit, grappling hooks & winches, voice projection, silent mode, oil jets, smoke screens, microwave jammer, auto-tinting windows, ejection seats, and more - nothing even remotely cool like that appears in this car, it does NOTHING. Hell, even the ridiculous final-season Super Pursuit Mode was better than this morphed Mustang of theirs. There's just nothing about this new KITT worth mention, it steals the "super" out of this supposed supercar.
Ultimately, this is a bad TV movie on its own, and worse, an utter insult to KITT.
Being a lifelong Knight Rider fan and critic, I could tell you all the ways this was unfaithful and disingenuous to the original. As a TV fan, I could spend a lot of time telling you that the production and direction are hopeless, the writing is awful and full of plot holes (how exactly are these villains beating the 200mph car everywhere?), or that the acting is unbelievably poor (you're in trouble when Hasselhoff's cameo is the best acting in the show). But all that I will spare to get down to brass tacks: what's really wrong with this Knight Rider are 3 fundamental problems, the 3 C's - conceptualization, casting, and the car.
The concept behind this doesn't work, there are too many players on the hero team, many of which feel completely extraneous, and too many interrelationships. It doesn't lay down a solid foundation and gives an incredibly overreaching threat. While trying to modernize Knight Rider, it's almost funny that they've unintentionally ripped off 2 other TV shows, "Viper" and the unpopular "Team Knight Rider", at the same time and done neither particularly well. Yes, there is more money poured into this, the visual effects are of a higher quality (though the fx is still surprisingly weak), but there's just nothing behind this, it's quite empty and doesn't really get to the point until its second ending, a final act that completely flops.
The casting's problem is likely with the conceptualization really, as Mike Traceur is unlikeable and fairly generic as a character. But they just cast the character too young and too flat. He doesn't stand for anything, he's just a tall, unimposing kid in a leather jacket, not remotely impressive.
Finally the car, which should be the star of the show, came off totally uninteresting - an intensely fatal flaw. The Mustang was a poor choice for KITT, it's aggressive instead of sleek, and lacks that slight futuristic quality the car should have had. I know Ford put money into this, but I wish they had used a different sporty car... oh wait, Ford doesn't MAKE another sporty car right now!
In the show, KITT is essentially a talking version of the supercar from "Viper" without the good looks or cool toys, it just changes color and morphs into super mode, but this Mustang supercar is somewhat boring to look at. The pimpin' wheels are not very Knight Rider, and the double-spoiler is downright embarrassing. So what else does it have then? Extra large intakes and a blocked grille, big deal. Oh, and it changes color twice, whoopee. They hyped that this KITT was designed by the creator of the movie Batmobile, what they don't focus on is the fact that the movie was "Batman & Robin" and it was easily the most forgettable Batmobile ever created, lacking all the heart and soul that makes a star car special - just as this new KITT suffers. Even the interior of KITT is bland, right down to the pathetic single computer touchscreen in the center console, way to suck the life out of Knight Rider, that crazy dash and all those buttons were so awesome back in the day, but it's all gone now. KITT's moving lightbars for when he talked? Replaced with a standard blobby line, the kind you could see in an old version of Windows Media Player and Sound Recorder. Glen Larson's legendary red sweeping scanner has been rendered boring here with a dull glow in the nose intakes which moves symmetrically.
The morphing into battle mode is done through CGI, but it's incredibly dull, not remotely as inspired as either version on "Viper", here the car simply has little tiny blocks appear and build out the extra bits in an unconvincing manner. We also get a few looks at how the car deals with invulnerability through slow-mo shots of bullets impacting and then fixing, throwing out the previous Knight Rider tech that was far less complex and didn't create such a gaping plot device when the car's computer goes offline. The concept has been seen before in other projects, quite often really and with far more effective means, and to be honest this nanotech concept still reeks no matter where it's used.
But the biggest issue with the car is it doesn't DO anything! Sure, it auto-drives in a few lackluster chase scenes, and KITT talks about all the satellite-tracking and computer mumbo jumbo he can do, but we really don't see it, and most of that cyber stuff is played out at this point. You know what KITT did really well back in the day? Turbo boost. KITT's aerial acrobatics that came 3/4ths into every episode were a huge source of entertainment. Ski mode on 2 wheels was good too. Showing the cool scanning going on, video conferencing with Bonnie in her sexy jumpsuit, grappling hooks & winches, voice projection, silent mode, oil jets, smoke screens, microwave jammer, auto-tinting windows, ejection seats, and more - nothing even remotely cool like that appears in this car, it does NOTHING. Hell, even the ridiculous final-season Super Pursuit Mode was better than this morphed Mustang of theirs. There's just nothing about this new KITT worth mention, it steals the "super" out of this supposed supercar.
Ultimately, this is a bad TV movie on its own, and worse, an utter insult to KITT.