Kingdom of Heaven: the Mark Steyn review

Steyn Online ^ | 20 May 2005 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

With all the ROTS hype this week, a little break from that.

[Rummyfan]

Ping again!

[martin_fierro]

She thinks nothing of riding out into the desert, dropping her veil and shagging like a minx.

Coffee, meet sinuses.

[Slings and Arrows]

All shots report hit...target destroyed!

[deadmuas]

I lasted until about 1/2 way thru then walked out thinking I will get to see the action part on DVD. If I never see Bloom act again it will be oo soon, he should have done what Mel did and used unknown actors.

[decal]

"Coffee, meet sinuses."

"Mr Blacksmith Goes to Jerusalem" did it for me.

[SkyPilot]

bump

[SIDENET]

Hold that thought, because certainly nobody held it in 1187

Good slam from Steyn.

[tet68]

Steyn, he's the best.

"Knight Club" did it for me.

[dennisw]

What sarcasm and wit!! Steyn has penned the best review yet.

[goldstategop]

Secular liberals are estranged from religion. The movie may have a medieval look to it - but it does NOT have a medieval feel to it. In the Middle Ages, faith was the center of every one's life from birth to death. Even secular literature is theocentric in the sense that people are living and acting out their faith in the every day world. Its a world that's long gone but Hollywood is not one to capture it for modern movie goers. Enlightened individuals no longer think much of or about religion - if they think about it at all. To rephrase a cliche, there's no Heaven in Ridley Scott's Kingdom!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[wizardoz]

I figured. I'll wait till it comes out on DVD and ... probably still skip it.

[FreedomFarmer]

Wherever he goes, the extras love him.

...did me in. `(:'>

[deadmuas]

Sir Norman Wisdom (check availability)

Guffaw

[deadmuas]

Sir Norman

[Last Dakotan]

‘I’m not really into movies.’

After reading this, me either.

[Bullish]

This peice of crap movie will hit DVD with dull thud.

[Frank_2001]

Great article!

[Unam Sanctam]

I would love to see a real movie that tried to capture the feelings and beliefs of the times -- not trying to whitewash the slaughters, but to try to be authentic rather than trying to make politically correct anachronistic points.

[swilhelm73]

Oh, and who do we get for Saladin? We need someone cool, measured, wise — not like these religious-right moral-majority nuts on the Christian side. Someone tall, dark and handsome. Hey, how about Osama bin Laden? Oh, okay, if we’ve been faxing the cave for two months and he still won’t play ball, let’s make do with Ghassan Massoud, who’s a close enough Osama bin Ladalike, at least in the long shots.

Of course Saladin *was* a religious fanatic. He followed in the footsteps of Nur-ad-Din and Zengi in using jihad to unify the fractured Muslim states in the near east to re-re-conquer the Levant.

Saladin's brilliance was in keeping the mass murder and mass enslavement comparitively low to reduce the scale of European intervention.

It was after all not even the Muslim conquest of the Christian Holy Land that brought about the Crusades, but what the Fatamids were doing to pilgrims and Latin Christians there.*

*And the Byzantine Emperor's request for help of course.