I saw Kingdom of Heaven and liked it well enough. It wasn't as good as Gladiator but it was better than Troy.

If you're looking for an accurate historical account of the Crusades or religious attitudes at the time, this probably isn't the movie for you. But if you like old-fashioned period films with studly guys, gorgeous locations, phenomenal sets and beautifully detailed clothes, then this movie is a good bet.

The story isn't perfect (especially when it comes to Orlando Bloom's motivations in the movie) but Bloom is easy on the eyes and there's plenty of spectacle. Look out for a nice performance by Edward Norton as the leper King Baldwin of Jerusalem.

Ridley Scott has said that the version in theaters (2 hrs 25 mins) isn't the version he wanted to release. Apparently, he wants to release a 3 hrs 30 mins version on DVD. This might help with some of the storyline issues as it definitely seemed like things were missing.

I'll second that at least. Power-hungry Arabs used religion to justify doing anything to try to conquer the known world and subject it to their narrow interpretation of Islam.

Now our military is being used by a few power-hungry Americans to do the same thing for a narrow interpretation of what they consider Christianity, cloaking it as self-defense.

This movie only romanticizes both sides, and leaves the Jews out entirely. I suppose it is just as well. Otherwise I suppose they too would have been romanticized into meaninglessness.

I'm no expert on the Crusades, but from what I have heard, it's a fairly balanced view of the plot (whether that is accurate or not, I'm not to say, but if you have both sides saying they are unfairly portrayed, you've done something right I guess). The movie is just about a very short part of the Crusades, I can understand why a longer version would be better - if the viewer does not know what's going on, it's easy to be lost.

Overall, I thought it was a decent flick. I like Ridley Scott's non-romance philosophy. Sure, in Gladiator and in this movie, there is 'romance' involved but it is hardly the main part of the flick like in other 'epic' movies like Titanic and such.

I didn't realize that was Ed Norton (obviously) until after when someone mentioned it to me.

I was expecting it to be rather pro-Christianity considering Bloom's role and such, but it was fairly balanced I thought (although the whole ending of 'can't we all get along' was a little stale.

And to think all of this fighting and killing and it ends up with the Jews! wink wink

The ending was definitely ahistorical with the "Why can't we all get along?" rhetoric.

illini -- the interesting thing about the romance aspect is that most of it was left on the cutting room floor. Eva Green's part as Princess Sibylla was eviscerated in the editing room. This footage may get restored for the DVD version. Restoring it may help to make more sense of Balian's relationship with her (which is somewhat confusing in the movie.)

I think a lot was cut from this movie. In his Rolling Stone interview, Orlando Bloom mentions several scenes that never appeared in the finished cut.

Not these ones in England: or their (non-existent) descendants.

[ May 14, 2005, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: sportinlife ]