Posted on 05/07/2005 8:34:45 AM PDT by TheSorcererwiththeCosmicKey
went to Kingdom of Heaven last night, and since i'm a huge fan of these type of pictures: full blown epics, i loved it. Of course, i could see why someone would not like it. First off, I was most impressed by: the sets and the costumes are awesome, like all of Ridley's Scott's other films, "black hawk down', ' gladiator' you are seriously thrown back into the time that he is trying to create and in this picture, you can feel the Crusades and you feel it.
Much has been in the presses about how the film would portray both religions, Christianity and Islam. However, both are given fair portrayls, ideologies, yet highlights the dangers of fanatical followers of both of the religions.
I know there are a lot of Orlando Bloom detractors out there, personally I thought his performance as Balian was pretty good. He is definitely no Russell Crowe or Mel Gibson type epic hero, but I think that was the plan. I think Scott wanted a quiet hero type. However, the whole relationship with Eva Green's character is sort of thrown around, she's great to look at, but their whole relationshuip was as i mentioned '' thrown together.'
All in all, my favorite scenes were: Balian taking on several knights at once, Balian counter-attacks vs. Saladin, when Baldwin the leper king and Saladin come face to face infront of both of their armies, pure awesome, when Baldwin slaps the * out of the * Reynald played by Brendan Gleeson, and when Balian kisses his sword, before he goes into battle.
Speaking of Baldwin, the leper king, he is played by the great Edward Norton, however, Norton goes throughout the whole film in a mask, due to the fact that his illness severely scared his face.
No Thanks. I always pass on IslamoFascist propaganda films.
No Kidding, IslamoFascist propaganda indeed. I hear 'the poor Muslims were only responding to the BAD Crusaders' attacks on their homeland.' Spare me.
I died for Orlando Bloom in the Fellowship of the ring movies, but he's never looked so cute to me since.
I actually died for most of the guys in those movies, I mean the ones who were of normal height.
Care to elaborate? Seriously, how is the movie not true to history?
English literature has done it for years, since the days of Robin Hood legends.
Never mind my opinion of adults who saturate themselves in fantasy as a serious passtime. That's a whole other story.
I have not yet seen the movie, but I would like to.
Kingdom of Heaven is designed to be a dream movie for those guilt-ridden creatures who believe that all the trouble between the Islamic world and the West has been caused by Western imperialism, racism, and colonialism, and that the glorious paradigm of Islamic tolerance, which was once a beacon to the world, could be reestablished if only the nasty white men of America and Europe would back off. A dream movie for the PC establishment, except for one little detail: it isn’t true.
Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, author of A Short History of the Crusades and one of the world’s leading historians of the period, called the movie “rubbish,” explaining that “it’s not historically accurate at all” as it “depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality.” Oh, and “there was never a confraternity of Muslims, Jews and Christians. That is utter nonsense.”
Professor Jonathan Philips, author of The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, also dismissed the film as history and took issue with its portrayal of the Crusader Knights Templars as villains: “The Templars as ‘baddies’ is only sustainable from the Muslim perspective, and ‘baddies’ is the wrong way to show it anyway. They are the biggest threat to the Muslims and many end up being killed because their sworn vocation is to defend the Holy Land.”
Nor does Kingdom of Heaven take any notice of the historical realities of Christians and Jews who lived under Muslim rule. They were never treated as equals or accorded full rights as citizens, and always suffered under various forms of institutionalized discrimination and harassment.
The Muslim warrior Saladin, who captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, is, according to a film publicist, a “hero of the piece.” He is one of the most legendary figures of the Crusades and in our age he has become PC as well: Saladin has become the prototype of the tolerant, magnanimous Muslim warrior, historical proof of the nobility of Islam and even of its superiority to wicked, Western, colonialist Christianity. In The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Amin Maalouf portrays the Crusaders as little more than savages, even gorging themselves on the flesh of those they have murdered. But Saladin! “He was always affable with visitors, insisting that they stay to eat, treating them with full honours, even if they were infidels, and satisfying all their requests. He could not bear to let someone who had come to him depart disappointed, and there were those who did not hesitate to take advantage of this quality. One day, during a truce with the Franj [Franks], the ‘Brins,’ lord of Antioch, arrived unexpectedly at Saladin’s tent and asked him to return a district that the sultan had taken four years earlier. And he agreed!” The lovable lug! If asked, he might have given away the entire Holy Land!
However, as I explain in my forthcoming book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades (Regnery), the real Saladin was not the proto-multiculturalist and early version of Nelson Mandela that he is made out to be by modern-day PC myth. Much is made of the fact that when Saladin recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslims in October 1187, he treated the Christians with magnanimity — in sharp contrast to the behavior of the Crusaders in 1099. But Saladin was no stranger to massacre: when his forces decisively defeated the Crusaders at Hattin on July 3, 1187, he ordered the mass execution of his Christian opponents. According to his secretary, Imad ed-Din, Saladin “ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and Sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics; each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais; the unbelievers showed black despair.”
Also, when Saladin and his men entered Jerusalem later that year, their magnanimity was actually pragmatism. He had initially planned to put to death all the Christians in the city. However, when the Christian commander inside Jerusalem, Balian of Ibelin, threatened in turn to destroy the city and kill all the Muslims there before Saladin could get inside, Saladin relented — although once inside the city he did enslave many of the Christians who could not afford to buy their way out of town.
Yet despite Kingdom of Heaven’s numerous whitewashes of history and strenuous efforts to portray the Muslims of the Crusader era in a favorable light, Islamic apologist Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Islamic law at the University of California, is in a froth about the film: “In my view,” he raged, “it is inevitable – I’m willing to risk my reputation on this – that after this movie is released there will be hate crimes committed directly because of it. People will go see it on a weekend and decide to teach some turbanhead a lesson.” Of course, this is less an indictment of the film than of the American people. I think it very likely that there will be no hate crimes against Muslims committed because of this film — and I hope that in that event Dr. Abou El Fadl’s reputation will be accorded the treatment it deserves.
In any event, Kingdom of Heaven cost over $150 million to make, features an all-star cast, and is being touted as “a fascinating history lesson.” Fascinating, maybe — but only as evidence of the lengths to which modern Westerners are willing to go to delude themselves.
(from Robert Spencer)
A great read as to why this movie, although it may be grand, is not even close to representing historical truth.
I'll wait for it on DVD.
I didn't watch Gladiator and think that Rome almost became a republic again - heck, Commodus didn't even die in the arena - but it was a pretty good movie.
Similarly here - if it portrays Saladin consistent with the myths of the noble enemy that European court romances portrayed him as for over a millenia, well, that won't bother me either.
Hate to burst your bubble. but I believe that Orlando Bloom is gay.
Thanks... I'll see it for free on cable. They won't get dime one from me.
He is not.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kingdom_of_heaven/
Got a 42% rating at Rotten Tomatoes
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There are huge narrative gaps in “Kingdom of Heaven,” such as Balian’s sudden expertise in military strategy and weaponry; his sudden “love” for Jerusalem and the King’s sister, who is de Lusignan’s wife, Sibylla (Eva Green). Considering the lack of back-story, viewers unfamiliar with the Crusades will be wracking their brains trying to figure out who came first and who deserves to be there.
That said, the film is absolutely gorgeous. Scott knows how to make a good-looking epic (“Gladiator”) and here he’s outdone himself with Moroccan locations standing in for Italy and the Holy Land, and with settings that are credible and detailed.
Aside from Irons, Neeson and Massoud, performances reflect one-dimensional characters. As to Bloom, admirable though his work is here, one can’t help but feel that a more imposing actor should’ve played Balian.
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FROM ROTTEN TOMATOES website:
"Bloom comes across as a vapid California surfer boy trying to be a serious "artist." This is an over-long, pretentious bore that I felt like I've seen and didn't like before."
-- Michelle Alexandria, ECLIPSE MAGAZINE
"As a war hero, Orlando Bloom reminds me of the nickname Truman Capote's father gave him: Little Miss Mouse Fart."
-- Tim Appelo, SEATTLE WEEKLY
"A bewildering mishmash of battle scenes and tenuous relationships that calls for heartthrob Orlando Bloom to save the day in a rags-to-riches hurry."
-- Jeanne Aufmuth, PALO ALTO WEEKLY
"The only variations between (recent battle epics) seem to be whether the hero was of noble birth, and whether the battlefields are green and forested or brown and sandy."
-- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE
"...the nickname Truman Capote's father gave him: Little Miss Mouse Fart."
ROFLMAO!!!!
These are good, they really live up to the "Rotten Tomatoes" name!
There's nothing I love more than a good pan!
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