fludd.org - Movie Review

As you all know it, Kingdom of Heaven was probably the most anticipated historical movie of all time when it came out. Because of its very burning subject (the Crusades), Kingdom of Heaven was likely to provoke hot reactions from Christians and Muslims from around the world, because in international politics, the relations between the West and Islamic civilization don’t illustrate a friendship. To be very honest with you, Kingdom of Heaven is just one of those movies that you watch for the action scenes and that gives you an idea about how the review will look like.

The reason why it was said in the introduction of this movie review that Kingdom of Heaven is just one of those movies that you watch for the action scenes it’s rather because this movie directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator) is clearly displaying a lack of historical resources. In fact, don’t even think that you can be fully prepared for a History exam after you’ve watched Kingdom of Heaven, because this action flick, in my opinion, looks too much like a piece of entertainment and therefore, so many historical elements that can help us to understand the Crusades thoroughly are missing.

Obviously, the point of this movie review is not to reveal any spoiler, but we will talk about the movie’s patent flaws without giving any punch lines from Kingdom of Heaven. What most people won’t like is the fact that most Europeans in this movie are presented as good guys while a good part of the Muslims are implicitly shown as simple villains. In fact, while some Europeans are religious fanatics, others talks and think as if Europe has gone through the Age of Enlightenment (one of the most interesting period in the History of Western civilization), a historical period that took place in… the eighteenth century! Hello, is there anybody who knows what the Crusades were all about? I was surprised to see that in this movie that takes place during the Crusades, some Christians are preaching tolerance…

Besides the annoying historiography that really kills the movie, Kingdom of Heaven would have been better if it deals a little bit with political questions that really mattered to both Christians and Muslims back in the time of the Crusades, because the only reason that is used by the Christians to defend Jerusalem, it’s because they just want to “defend the people”. The scriptwriter avoids talking about the Western imperialism. Why did the Christians want to defend Jerusalem? Is the possession of Jerusalem conceals any political, military and economic interests? What was the real value of Jerusalem according to the Christians? Those interesting questions (and also other questions) unfortunately remain unanswered when the movie ends.

Given the mountainous budget that has been put on the screen in order to impress us, the acting in Kingdom of Heaven is not as great as we all expect to see it. Even though so many girls do like British actor Orlando Bloom (Lords of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) since the Lords of the Rings trilogy came out, it shouldn’t be said that this actor who portrays Balian impresses us. In fact, Bloom lacks charisma. He’s not the kind of actor who has the ability to bear a whole movie over his shoulder due to his lack of experience and also to his nearly cold, uninspiring and wooden performance. Hopefully, Bloom is quite well supported by Eva Green, Jeremy Irons and Ghassan Massoud.

Finally, I’ve had the feeling that Kingdom of Heaven is not the kind of movie that I should watch in order to learn more about the Crusades, because this silly historical movie directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator) looks more like a movie that you watch before you go to bed or rather a movie that you watch when you’re emotionally down. Furthermore, the romance between Balian (the character played by Orlando Bloom) and the European princess played by French actress Eva Green is quite corny and it doesn’t add any reason to be interested to that simple movie that lacks a little bit of historical coherence and psychological development.

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