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Well I’m a huge Ridley Scott fan, I am a sucker for period pieces and to say I love Gladiador isn’t enough. Like Crowe’s Maximus, Balian is reeling from the untimely death of his wife. But revenge is not Balian’s calling. As it turns out, she committed suicide, so she’s eternally damned according to the village priest. Afterwards he is told by Godfrey of Ibelin that he is his bastard son and offers him to come to the Crusades to fight. And I can bet that you already know the rest so I won’t continue to the story but to the movie in itself.

What worked in this film were obviously the cinematography, costumes and landscapes. Ridley definitely knows how to make a movie look good. Even if Ridley changed Hans Zimmer for Gregson-Williams in this movie, the music was great. And the best thing is that you don’t even notice that there were any special effects… it all looks very real. The battles were cool, and some of it was new and at least I had never seen anything like it in a movie. Another thing I liked was the message of the story, it seemed very balanced, and criticized the hypocrites and religion fanatics.The acting was superb. Even if Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons and Edward Norton had small parts they managed to shine. Personally I loved David Thewlis’ character, the Hospitaler. Also Marton Csokas and Brendan Gleeson did a nice job as being the bad guys. Ghassan Massound did a great job as Saladin, the Muslim leader.

For my great surprise Orlando Bloom did a nice job for being his first time as a lead. Let’s face it, he had never done serious acting until this, he’s always been the quiet guy or the second mate. Another big surprise for me was that last time I saw Bloom on the big screen was as the scrawny Paris, and now he looked really different. I think he gained 20 pounds or something for this, and it definitely helped him look convincing.

Sibylla at one point in the movie says to Balian ‘You’re a knight,’ to which he replies, ‘Neither earned nor proved.’ By the end of the movie he has both proved and earned it.

Now what didn’t work was the editing I think, it was way too obvious that they cut this film to make it bearable to average audiences and to make it work as a summer flick. And that makes the movie at times feel choppy and the story lacked character development at some points.

Another thing that didn’t work for me is that the character of Eva Green, the princess of Jerusalem. It wasn’t Eva Green’s fault it was mostly the fact that we never get to know why she liked Balian or why she does many other things. The character development was the biggest flaw in the movie.

Besides, I would have liked a gorier film as the Crusades were supposed to be very violent, but then again it’s just my opinion.

I guess Kingdom of Heaven is like Blade Runner. A great movie but a bit flawed that maybe will be better received when the Director’s Cut comes out that, yes it will be an almost 4 hour movie, BUT will have all the character development.

This movie is definitely better than Troy, Alexander and King Arthur, but there’s no replacing Gladiator, at least until the Director’s Cut of KOH comes out.

In the end KOH is an entertaining movie, worth checking out. I rate the movie with 8.5 out of 10, there was room for improvement.

Oh well, maybe this movie will please Orlando fans. Even one of my girl friends that doesn’t like Orlando was almost drooling, and I almost thought this would be a safe movie to watch with girls as he looks all dirty and stuff. Unfortunately you can never have it all.

source : imdb.com

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