Kingdom of Heaven
 

Just got back from this movie and I enjoyed it. To me it confirms that Ridley Scott is one of the more consistantly good directors of our time. It isn't as good as Gladiator, but still pretty good.

I was positively surprised about Orlando Bloom's performance. Frankly that was the one thing which worried me the most about this movie, seeing his mediocre performances in Black Hawk Down and Pirates of the Carribean, but he really did a good job.

The sets and the effects were good as always with Ridley Scott movies. I think they did a good job with the CGI, making it look at least somewhat realistic.

Most of all it felt like the movie didn't get bogged down like many historical epics get. The running time is 2.5 hours and I felt that was a good length for the story told.

All in all I'd give it a B+ I think. What do you guys think?

Swede

Re: Kingdom of Heaven
 

[ QUOTE ]
Just got back from this movie and I enjoyed it. To me it confirms that Ridley Scott is one of the more consistantly good directors of our time. It isn't as good as Gladiator, but still pretty good.

I was positively surprised about Orlando Bloom's performance. Frankly that was the one thing which worried me the most about this movie, seeing his mediocre performances in Black Hawk Down and Pirates of the Carribean, but he really did a good job.

The sets and the effects were good as always with Ridley Scott movies. I think they did a good job with the CGI, making it look at least somewhat realistic.

Most of all it felt like the movie didn't get bogged down like many historical epics get. The running time is 2.5 hours and I felt that was a good length for the story told.

All in all I'd give it a B+ I think. What do you guys think?

Swede

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw it yesterday, and I give it a C+. I didn't think much of Orlando Bloom's acting -- he seemed fairly vacuous most of the time.

I found the reason why he decided to join his father in the Crusade to be a little too contrived.

I found that the film tried too hard to make us sympathize with both sides. This is most certainly to do with the current political climate. Making the Saracens out to be bloodthirsty jihadists would have caused all sorts of backlash from Muslims. However, had they made the Christians out to be genocidal murderers, it would have caused all sorts of backlash from right-wing Americans who would complain that the movie had a left-wing political motive. The brutality of the period was glossed over way too much in order to make the movie politically correct.

Re: Kingdom of Heaven
 

I think the search function would be good. This is the fourth thread about this crappy movie.