Kingdom of Heaven is the story of a blacksmith who becomes a knight and ultimately, defender of Jerusalem. It is also an epic movie with epic battles featuring epic history (of presumably zero accuracy). And it's kind of boring, too.
First of all, there's the clumsy start. Orlando Bloom's character gets a visit from his dad, he follows him towards the Holy Land, the "New World", he becomes a knight and then he's the nice hero. It's rather painful how quickly the start takes place: In one scene, Orlando Bloom has his first bit of fighting training against his dad, and he starts out somewhat clumsy. Thirty seconds later (during the same fight), he's skilled, and conveniently, another thirty seconds later a group of enemies arrives to be slaughtered and slaughter his newfound friends. I know that it's a Hollywood rule to squeeze as much of the setup as possible into the first 10 minutes, but given how the rest of the movie slacks and bores in many places, it was kind of ridiculous to rush the start so poorly here.
The entire film is shot in darkish and blueish tones. I suppose the director took the term "dark ages" quite literally. It makes the film visually depressing to watch. The music tries very hard to be as Gladiatory as possible (as do some of the visuals), and some of the characters seem almost identical. The princess here manages to echo the caesar's sister in Gladiator, there are two mentor characters that have much in common with Oliver Reed's character in Gladiator, and even the story-ark of "man who loses everything turns into hero who saves the world" is intact.
Sadly, the film is nevertheless more boring. Maybe I've suffered cinema-battle fatigue, but I kept sitting there during the battle scenes, thinking they look far too big, far too Lord-of-the-Ringy to be realistic. This isn't a fantasy film, and they seemed somehow out of place. As for the rest of the story, Orlando Bloom's character is an idiot. In the end, the biggest slaughter that happens is directly his fault. If this is a story of redemption, as it depicts itself, then there's a helluva lot of redemption to pay after the end credits roll.
And I couldn't help laughing at some of the Orwellian aspects of the film. In 1984, it's one aspect of Big Brother to demand of his subjects to believe that something can be simultaneously true and not true, that opposites can both be correct. Here, this is seen as a "wise" or "poetic" way of things, when in fact it's just pretentious. When someone asks "What is Jerusalem worth?" and gets the answer "Nothing. Everything." the audience is left gasping in awe at those wise words, or in my case, giggling at the pretentious ridiculousness of the writing. And it happens throughout the movie.
All in all, it's an OK way to pass the time, if you don't mind being bored somewhat, and if you like epic battle sequences and idiotic heros that are sure to do the most stupid noble things.
First of all, there's the clumsy start. Orlando Bloom's character gets a visit from his dad, he follows him towards the Holy Land, the "New World", he becomes a knight and then he's the nice hero. It's rather painful how quickly the start takes place: In one scene, Orlando Bloom has his first bit of fighting training against his dad, and he starts out somewhat clumsy. Thirty seconds later (during the same fight), he's skilled, and conveniently, another thirty seconds later a group of enemies arrives to be slaughtered and slaughter his newfound friends. I know that it's a Hollywood rule to squeeze as much of the setup as possible into the first 10 minutes, but given how the rest of the movie slacks and bores in many places, it was kind of ridiculous to rush the start so poorly here.
The entire film is shot in darkish and blueish tones. I suppose the director took the term "dark ages" quite literally. It makes the film visually depressing to watch. The music tries very hard to be as Gladiatory as possible (as do some of the visuals), and some of the characters seem almost identical. The princess here manages to echo the caesar's sister in Gladiator, there are two mentor characters that have much in common with Oliver Reed's character in Gladiator, and even the story-ark of "man who loses everything turns into hero who saves the world" is intact.
Sadly, the film is nevertheless more boring. Maybe I've suffered cinema-battle fatigue, but I kept sitting there during the battle scenes, thinking they look far too big, far too Lord-of-the-Ringy to be realistic. This isn't a fantasy film, and they seemed somehow out of place. As for the rest of the story, Orlando Bloom's character is an idiot. In the end, the biggest slaughter that happens is directly his fault. If this is a story of redemption, as it depicts itself, then there's a helluva lot of redemption to pay after the end credits roll.
And I couldn't help laughing at some of the Orwellian aspects of the film. In 1984, it's one aspect of Big Brother to demand of his subjects to believe that something can be simultaneously true and not true, that opposites can both be correct. Here, this is seen as a "wise" or "poetic" way of things, when in fact it's just pretentious. When someone asks "What is Jerusalem worth?" and gets the answer "Nothing. Everything." the audience is left gasping in awe at those wise words, or in my case, giggling at the pretentious ridiculousness of the writing. And it happens throughout the movie.
All in all, it's an OK way to pass the time, if you don't mind being bored somewhat, and if you like epic battle sequences and idiotic heros that are sure to do the most stupid noble things.