Watched Kingdom of Heaven yesterday. To think, I've been waiting earnestly for a Crusader film, and to think that I was gearing myself for great battle scenes seeing the damn good trailer and website and the fact that it was Ridley Scott directing... 10 out of 10 from me, you think?
HELL NO!
5 out of 10, more like it!First, they picked the wrong actor for Balian (sp?). Legolas is too much of a pretty boy (understandable if he was in Pirates of the Caribean, considering the Royal Navy's penchant for buggery
), not manly-enough to lead a group of battle-weary soldiers away from their wifeys in Europe (but close to their wifeys in Outremer hehehe). They should've picked someone more gruff.
Second, the battle scenes are lousy. Gladiator KOH was not! The battle reminds me of the King Arthur movie recently shown (last year?) - which means confusing, with lots of shaking of camera, no coherent look, just plain chaos. Ok, battle - particularly in that era - is chaos, but Peter Jackson did a good job depicting organized chaos and controlled anarchy in RotK. How can you feel the drama and horror of war with a camera that keeps on shaking around?
Third, slow motion. Too much of it. I hate slow motion when used in battles. Several instances in the movie where slow motion was used. Stupid really. Doesn't add drama at all (which slow motion is supposed to convey).
Fourth, stupid, lame, uninspiring battle speeches. Who was the script writer? Seize him and have him hanged, drawn and quartered for boring the troops (and the audience). And I found it particularly corny when Balian did the mass-knighting thingy. "Arise, a Knight!" Wow. How inspiring. NOT! Honestly, after one speech, there was this long silent moment in the film which I promptly filled by saying the whole speech of Aragorn before the Black Gate of Mordor (yep! I'm not kidding! I memorize and said the entire "Soldiers of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes..." speech)
Fifth, seige of Jerusalem oddly looked like Helm's Deep, the breach reminded me of the breach of the Deeping Wall.
Sixth, too preachy.
Seventh, (and one which a lot of reviews out there say) lacks character development.
Eighth, no inspiring music - not inspiring enough to make me go to some record shop and get the soundtrack. Not a single piece at all that would make me search for an MP3 of it on the net. None at all.
Ninth, (most grevious sin of all) THEY DENIED ME THE SLAUGHTER THAT WAS HATTIN! Hell, they just showed (counts fingers), one melee, two skirmishes, and one siege. Compare that to Braveheart which had two full-blown battles and one siege, and RotK which had three battles, two sieges, and several skirmishes. One would think, "Hey, Riddley Scott, Hattin - great battle scene." But noooooooooOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOooooooooo! They just showed the aftermath of Hattin. Boring.
So, overall, just 5 out of 10 IMO.
Plus was Eva Green's lovely eyes (damn they were lovely!). Actually, she had the look of a "forbidden fruit" hehehe
Another plus was that the movie didn't feel too long. If it was, say, three hours or so, and if they still left out Hattin in that three hours or so, it would've been dragging.
However, I must be fair. They say an hour's worth of film was cut out to make the movie shorter, more "viewable" and greater revenue (shorter movie, more screening times in the day, more people watching per day, greater chance of making the first week very profitable). Perhaps that one hour would've immeasurably improved the film. Or (as Bull and I surmised yesterday), perhaps that one hour was the long exotic love scene between Sybilla and Balian (mmmmmmmmmmm.... Sybilla, finest of wives hehehe).
Still, at least it was better than Troy (and, I surmise, Alexander, which I didn't watch).
Now, if someone can do a decent film on the Fall of Constantinople, or the Siege of Malta, I'd look forward to seeing that.
KoH being a disappointment, still, I'd love to see more Middle Ages films. WW2 is getting tiresome. WW1 would be more interesting than WW2 IMO.
EDITED FOR STUPID SPELLING
Great film!
