Coming out tomorrow in the states? Released tonight in Australia; rottentomatoes reviews already up...
Strangely enough the cream of the crop reviews are much more positive about it then the ordinary reviews (normally the cream seems harsher). Roeper and Ebert gives it 2 thumbs up.
I am going to see it too. I wasn't too impressed at first, but Liam Neeson looks outstanding as usual and Jeremy Irons rocks in any movie. He even rocked in Die Hard 3 and that in itself was quite an achievement.
Saw it today, pretty good film. Orlando Bloom [Aka Aragonolas] was much better here than in Troy, but IMO, despite being 2 1/2 hours long, seemed to skip a fair bit.
For example, the movie showed nearly no training at all, other than learning to put your sword up at the beginning. He went from Blacksmith to instant leader and knight?
For example, the movie showed nearly no training at all, other than learning to put your sword up at the beginning. He went from Blacksmith to instant leader and knight?
Training scenes are retarded unless it is Rocky, God gives them the will to fight.
I watched the A&E special which is essentially a history show with clips from the movie. After seeing it I have no reason to watch the movie. If you have seen LOTR you are better off watching the special. If you are some ADD action junkie watch the movie.
If you want to save yourself $6 here is the plot. Oh yeah and it looks like freaking LOTR from the siege machines to the horse formations. Trust me if you've seen LOTR you will be like where is Gandalf.
Essentially its the 2nd crusade. The first one failed to claim the Holy Land but this one succeeds. The crusades were created as a method for salvation of sins and because it was better to kill muslims for God's Land rather than themselves/christians in Europe. The crusaders are so bloodlusted they slaughter all 10k muslims and jews in Jerusalem causing the Muslim world to band together via Saladin. Meanwhile the Crusaders start to make peace and business with the local Muslim villages. The king is a leper and dies with no son. His sister marries a french coward who half the crusaders don't respect. The other half follow this psychoic french knight who believes in god absolute and doesnt want peace, only war. Saladin brings his armies to a major fort. Bloom says stay in the fort. Psychotic french knight says God is War and they go out into the desert to fight Saladin. They all die except Bloom. Saladin wants to slaughter Jerusalem to avenge the 10k deaths 100 years ago, but Bloom trades the safety of Muslim buildings and the meteor for christians being able to pay 10 dinar to escape (not
everyone could afford it). Yes, that is the end. Its history and its lame. Jeremy Irons does nothing, Neeson does nothing, Bloom does not fit the role at all because he looks 14 and he will always be Legolas. Eva Green does not get naked. They could have done this with generic actors for the same result.
I doubt this is in the movie but the theologians from the A&E special talked about how they killed the psychotic french knight and the Knights Templar (think ARC troopers). Saladin personally beheaded the french guy and the Templars were beheaded by Muslim scholars who had no experience, perhaps to add to the suffering of not being able to cut through on the first hack. And because beheading an infidel was an honour.
I think the Braveheart style ending would have been cooler than paying to walk away.
This movie opened here a few days ago I think, we rarely get an early release like that, most of the time movies come out in theaters here just as they are hitting DVD in the states.
Training scenes are retarded unless it is Rocky, God gives them the will to fight.
I watched the A&E special which is essentially a history show with clips from the movie. After seeing it I have no reason to watch the movie. If you have seen LOTR you are better off watching the special. If you are some ADD action junkie watch the movie.
If you want to save yourself $6 here is the plot. Oh yeah and it looks like freaking LOTR from the siege machines to the horse formations. Trust me if you've seen LOTR you will be like where is Gandalf.
Essentially its the 2nd crusade. The first one failed to claim the Holy Land but this one succeeds. The crusades were created as a method for salvation of sins and because it was better to kill muslims for God's Land rather than themselves/christians in Europe. The crusaders are so bloodlusted they slaughter all 10k muslims and jews in Jerusalem causing the Muslim world to band together via Saladin. Meanwhile the Crusaders start to make peace and business with the local Muslim villages. The king is a leper and dies with no son. His sister marries a french coward who half the crusaders don't respect. The other half follow this psychoic french knight who believes in god absolute and doesnt want peace, only war. Saladin brings his armies to a major fort. Bloom says stay in the fort. Psychotic french knight says God is War and they go out into the desert to fight Saladin. They all die except Bloom. Saladin wants to slaughter Jerusalem to avenge the 10k deaths 100 years ago, but Bloom trades the safety of Muslim buildings and the meteor for christians being able to pay 10 dinar to escape (not
everyone could afford it). Yes, that is the end. Its history and its lame. Jeremy Irons does nothing, Neeson does nothing, Bloom does not fit the role at all because he looks 14 and he will always be Legolas. Eva Green does not get naked. They could have done this with generic actors for the same result.
I doubt this is in the movie but the theologians from the A&E special talked about how they killed the psychotic french knight and the Knights Templar (think ARC troopers). Saladin personally beheaded the french guy and the Templars were beheaded by Muslim scholars who had no experience, perhaps to add to the suffering of not being able to cut through on the first hack. And because beheading an infidel was an honour.
I think the Braveheart style ending would have been cooler than paying to walk away.
I'm going to see it just cuz it's a Ridley Scott action flick.
Does anyone know
if it actually SHOWS the slaughter of 10,000 muslims? There's some BRUTAL history in this time period and if it shows any of this I think it'll be worth the money to go and see.
I'm going to see it just cuz it's a Ridley Scott action flick.
Does anyone know
if it actually SHOWS the slaughter of 10,000 muslims? There's some BRUTAL history in this time period and if it shows any of this I think it'll be worth the money to go and see.
I don't think this is going to be as shitty as Troy, but it has dipped into Alexander territory according to the critics at Rottentomatoes. Rental or dl at best.
I don't think this is going to be as shitty as Troy, but it has dipped into Alexander territory according to the critics at Rottentomatoes. Rental or dl at best.
Cream of the crop for KoH is 60%, while Alexander had like a 5%.
Screw the critics though. I rarely see or miss a movie by their opinion. Atleast with a Ridley Scott movie you know it's going to look great and be entertaining.
I don't think this is going to be as shitty as Troy, but it has dipped into Alexander territory according to the critics at Rottentomatoes. Rental or dl at best.
From the trailer it seems that the cinematography and the visuals are the best features of the film so I'd think seeing it on the small screen would be missing what's probably the most enjoyable parts of the epic. Having said that, some critics have said that the film seems too short even at over two hours, so a director's cut might be the version to see.
From the trailer it seems that the cinematography and the visuals are the best features of the film so I'd think seeing it on the small screen would be missing what's probably the most enjoyable parts of the epic.
Speaking of Rotten Tomatoes, even Gladiator only has a 77% rating, and a 72% Cream of the Crop rating. That's probably my favorite movie of all time. So I don't give a shit about reviews for this movie. Critics are always harsh on epic movies. Hell, Braveheart only has a 69% CotC rating. Critics suck.
It does look amazing! I was reading a review in USA today, and it mentioned something about an additional 80 minutes of film that will be on the DVD version.
Eh, hopefully the DVD version will flesh things out a bit because the movie feels like an edited-for-TV version that's rushed.
Dr. Bashir was an awesome surprise. I was glad to see him in a big role in a movie where he wasn't playing a terrorist (he was in HBO's The Hamberg Cell as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed).
I really liked David Thewlis.
I didn't have a problem with Orlando Bloom carrying the movie. He fits the character he plays well.
Eva Green looked like a crack whore during most of the movie.
Didn't quite like how evil they made the Knights Templar to be, but thankfully it could've been much worse. However at times the movie felt like a big sobbing love letter to the Muslims who bitched about Black Hawk Down by taking the Knights Templar (who were really charged with protecting the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, something Orlando Bloom's knights did in the movie) and turning them into evil black knights. It's like William Monahan read the Da Vinci Code and was convinced that they were evil and corrupt (when there is NO historical evidence at all that they were guilty of the crimes they were accused of) and decided to turn them into a movie villain.
I was seriously close to walking out when they made it clear that the Knights Templar were the villains, but that passes in time. It's not nearly as bad as William Wallace banging a princess who was nine years old during his time and fathering Edward III, but it was close.
Marton Csokas bothered me as the villain because I just can't get his stupid B-movie villain in xXx out of my head whenever he's in a movie. He even bothered me as Celeborn in LOTR.
I did really enjoy the ending where
Richard the Lionheart showed up
It was decent. A 7/10. Hopefully the DVD will be better.
I just got back and I really enjoyed it. It was most definitely edited down quite a bit, which was my main complaint. Some of the scenes and characters really needed to be fleshed out more. For a movie about the Crusades, they left some historical value out which I think would have given it more meaning. As it stands, it's basically about a man who comes to grips with his feeling on religion with the Crusades conveniently being a backdrop.
It's Ridley Scott, so I needn't mention how spectacular the cinematography was. This is one great looking film and only Ridley can make a desert look so alive. Come Oscar time, I expect this to be a frontrunner for that category.
Orlando Bloom held his own I thought. He wasn't really given the material to screw it up too hard though. Eva was hot. Edward, Liam, and Jeremy don't really have a lot of screen time, but are solid when they are given it.
All in all, it was a good movie that will benefit greatly with a Director's Cut DVD. And yes, the siege of Jerusalem is awesome.
The assorted actors and Scott himself confirmed today that the original cut of the film clocked in at a little over three hours (around 195 mins). Actress Eva Green revealed that the longer cut focuses more on the characters, and less on the crusades themselves.
Amongst the stuff edited out is more of the love story between Green and Bloom's character, and a subplot involving her son. Green says her Lady Macbeth style tragic character is more complex in the longer version - a journey of self discovery.
Why then did they bother with a shorter theatrical cut? Scott says "The DVD world is a different experience. A theatrical audience goes out to see the movie, and I think to a degree there's a tolerance...do you think operas tend to be a bit long? do you think theatre tends to be a bit long? You think 'oh my god' there's going to be another act...The extended version, you can tell why we had certain scenes in the extended version. The one that went out was the best version, no question about it in my opinion."
Why then did they bother with a shorter theatrical cut? Scott says "The DVD world is a different experience. A theatrical audience goes out to see the movie, and I think to a degree there's a tolerance...do you think operas tend to be a bit long? do you think theatre tends to be a bit long? You think 'oh my god' there's going to be another act...The extended version, you can tell why we had certain scenes in the extended version. The one that went out was the best version, no question about it in my opinion."
BULLSHIT Fox didn't want to release a three hour version in the summer movie season. They made Scott cut it down and he's just playing to the studio in that quote.
Saw this tonight and I really liked it. I'll admit that I don't think most of the characters were fleshed out quite as well as they could have been, but you got enough to understand most of them. I thought David Thewlis was fantastic, the same goes for Jeremy Irons and to an every so slightly lesser extent, Liam Neeson (only because he wasn't in it very much). Bloom did a very good job as well. I didn't have any problems with him in the role. I think you all just need to get over that he played an elf in some movies. That doesn't mean he always has to play that kind of character. I felt he looked manly enough for it.
As for the visuals, they are fantastic. The surround sound mix is fucking awesome. Almost every shot is beautiful. The battle scenes are magnificent.
The scene where Bloom stabs the priest with the red hot sword and then throws him in the fire was killer.
Sexy actress Eva Green has slammed director Ridley Scott for removing most of the raunchy sex scene she had with screen hunk Orlando Bloom from new movie Kingdom of Heaven. Green enjoyed playing Bloom's lover Princess Sybilla in the film, but was devastated to discover Scott had deleted "the best bits" because he deemed them too shocking. She says, "It is a pity because we spent so long getting it just right. I didn't know how much had been cut until I went into the studio to record the soundtrack. It was a shock when I found out how much had gone, all of the best bits. But Orlando is sexy and gorgeous. What girl would not want to get naked with him? But he is not a seducer. He is very kind and careful and respects women."
I thought the inclusion of that scene in the movie was pretty stupid. You see Eva and Orlando jump into bed and then 2 seconds later it cuts to the next day. Damn you Ridley!
Saw it earlier..pretty good overall. Spectacular cinematography, good music, some interesting characters and a pretty engaging plot. Nothing really offended my sensibilities beyond the mild predictability that comes with all of these films (star grows into heroic figure, finds girl, gives rousing speech, wins battle with superior wit etc). Bloom was a little..I think "wooden" is too harsh a word but I guess it would be safe to say that his range of facial expressions/gestures is limited and you do get a bit of the sense that he's underachieving. But he wasn't bad by any stretch, and a number of the other performances were quite compelling. I also was a little concerned when the film started with Ridley's new trademark "shitloads of inexpicable cotton chaff swirling in the air" gimmick that he utilized heavily in Gladiator and Legend.
Anyway, its worth seeing in the theater and I'll be interested to check it out in its extended form on DVD. I'd give it a 7.5-8 out of 10 overall and rate it higher than Troy (which despite having some great qualities did manage to offend my sensibilities) but considerably below Gladiator, Braveheart, and the elites of the genre.
I thought the inclusion of that scene in the movie was pretty stupid. You see Eva and Orlando jump into bed and then 2 seconds later it cuts to the next day. Damn you Ridley!
Well if its any consolation, if you wanna see her best bits, "The Dreamers" has recently been showing on HBO and Miss Green gets ass naked thoughout much of the film. Its funny reading that news bit though, because thats exactly the vibe I got from seeing the brief scene that made it into the film...like "you can tell they shot a lot more to this but it didn't leave the editing room floor". Nice to hear an actress complain about not being naked enough in a movie instead of vice versa *cough*PortmanCloser*cough*.
Well if its any consolation, if you wanna see her best bits, "The Dreamers" has recently been showing on HBO and Miss Green gets ass naked thoughout much of the film. Its funny reading that news bit though, because thats exactly the vibe I got from seeing the brief scene that made it into the film...like "you can tell they shot a lot more to this but it didn't leave the editing room floor". Nice to hear an actress complain about not being naked enough in a movie instead of vice versa *cough*PortmanCloser*cough*.
It was an OK movie. Like a lot of people said, it felt way too rushed.
Some of the movie didn't make 100% sense either. I liked the overall message though, just wish the movie was able to explore the characters a little more.
Just saw it and it's one of the better war movies. Bloom's acting was good in this, he's good at playing a blacksmith. And by the way people hate him in Troy, he was great in that since it was the point of his role. KoH may be too anti-religious for some though.
Man, that was a hell of a fucking movie. Top notch cinema, that. I'm referring to the NC-17 version of course. I work at the campus movie theatre and we showed it along with a discussion of it.
Just got home from it. I thought it blew total ass. The fact that I didn't care for the movie, and that it was 2 1/2 hours long... Made me hate it a lot more than I would have if it was an hour and a half. Some of the dialogue was horrible, and nothing very epic about the battles. This genre is really getting old for me. Bloom should try acting in some other type of movie.
I tried talking everyone into seeing Crash, but it didn't happen. They wished they had listened to me afterwards.
