Imagine Tony Robinson's Time Team recruited from the ranks of Britain's B-list acting fraternity...and then being catapulted back to the 14th century.

Billy Connolly is stranded back in 1357 after a teleporting gizmo invented by the shady International Technology Corporation developed a glitch.

To the rescue comes Billy's son Chris (Walker) and a motley crew of students including Andre (Butler) and the winsome Kate (O'Connor).

They're transported back to medieval France to find Bill...only to set down in a vicious feudal war between the French and the English.

Michael "Jurassic Park" Crichton provided the source novel...but director Richard Donner has cooked up a monstrous pudding of a movie.

"Do we look like quantum wormhole specialists," Kate demands of David Thewlis's shifty ITC supremo.

Well, no actually you don't. You look like a bunch of actors who should be threatening bodily harm to their agents.

The cast try - and God do they try - to breathe life into a dire script which sees Anna Friel's French peasant girl shouting "vite" a lot.

Along the way we learn that Billy Connolly invented napalm and the English had an unhealthy obession with old siege machines. "There's a goodly number of trebuches!"

Naff love scene of the year must go to Butler's wooing of Friel while up to his neck in a river while she bobs along in a coracle.

However, despite all its failings, there's plenty of fun to be had - for all the wrong reasons.

Verily, a masterclass in overacting...

Tim Evans