SJRB
Gold Member
I just finished watching the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven and holy shit what a ride, I need to rant about this one. I never saw this movie before and aside from the Crusades and Jerusalem had no idea what it was about. Clocking in at a length of 3 hours 20 minutes this movie is an experience.
It starts off in the most cliché way possible with the outcast hero getting betrayed by his brother who is so comically evil it's hilarious. It takes about five minutes before the movie pulls the classic hero path of "guess what you're the son of royalty, let's go on an adventure to claim what's yours", and the first maybe hour or so is him basically falling upwards in a huge way. As fate would have it his dad is a hugely influential crusader, loved and respected by literally everyone so naturally everyone immediately loves and respects the protagonist. Also the protagonist is amazing at everything, is an incredible swordsman and a genius engineer. All this feels like a typical early 2000-era movie and honestly aside from the stellar cast and insane visuals it's not really a strong start.
But the movie actually makes quite a pivot once the main character reaches Jerusalem and it suddenly switches off the kind of swashbuckling adventure vibes and goes full serious mode. Suddenly it is all about politics, intrigue, love, loyalty and betrayal. He meets the King of Jerusalem (hypnotizing performance from Edward Norton who even behind a mask delivers amazing work) who asks him for loyalty but he refuses.
There's the jealousy among knights, the rapid deterioration of the King's health and the looming threat of Saladin's Muslim forces, eagerly awaiting to take back Jerusalem from the Christians. Both the King and Saladin would prefer peace instead of war, but both have people in their council who would do anything to instigate a war. This whole part of history is insane. I've been reading up about it the last few weeks and it is unbelievable, the things that happened back then.
There's also plenty of downtime. The protagonist gets allotted the land of his father where the movie spends probably 45 minutes of him teaching agriculture and water engineering works. Seriously, it's like 45 minutes of them digging wells, building aqueducts, growing crops. It's crazy.
Anyway, the whole movie you're just along for the ride, not sure where it is going but at some point you realize there's going to be a battle. And by god, what a battle. The Battle for Jerusalem. I've never seen such a huge battlefield in a movie in my life. The amount of people involved in these shots is insane. It is literally 45 minutes of full-on siege warfare on an insane scale. Plus an amazing payoff in the epilogue showing the pointlessness of it all. And endless cycle of bloodshed over a piece of land. Very poignant.
Just like every man thinks about the Roman Empire on a daily basis, I'm sure almost every man thinks about the Crusades in some way or form on a regular basis. Go watch this movie asap. Some things feel archaic, like the cliché antagonist's over-the-top hatred for the protagonist, but the visuals, the scale, the spectacle are overwhelming.
Banger cast: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Liam Neeson, Edward Norton, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, David Thewlis, Martin Sheen.
It starts off in the most cliché way possible with the outcast hero getting betrayed by his brother who is so comically evil it's hilarious. It takes about five minutes before the movie pulls the classic hero path of "guess what you're the son of royalty, let's go on an adventure to claim what's yours", and the first maybe hour or so is him basically falling upwards in a huge way. As fate would have it his dad is a hugely influential crusader, loved and respected by literally everyone so naturally everyone immediately loves and respects the protagonist. Also the protagonist is amazing at everything, is an incredible swordsman and a genius engineer. All this feels like a typical early 2000-era movie and honestly aside from the stellar cast and insane visuals it's not really a strong start.
But the movie actually makes quite a pivot once the main character reaches Jerusalem and it suddenly switches off the kind of swashbuckling adventure vibes and goes full serious mode. Suddenly it is all about politics, intrigue, love, loyalty and betrayal. He meets the King of Jerusalem (hypnotizing performance from Edward Norton who even behind a mask delivers amazing work) who asks him for loyalty but he refuses.
There's the jealousy among knights, the rapid deterioration of the King's health and the looming threat of Saladin's Muslim forces, eagerly awaiting to take back Jerusalem from the Christians. Both the King and Saladin would prefer peace instead of war, but both have people in their council who would do anything to instigate a war. This whole part of history is insane. I've been reading up about it the last few weeks and it is unbelievable, the things that happened back then.
There's also plenty of downtime. The protagonist gets allotted the land of his father where the movie spends probably 45 minutes of him teaching agriculture and water engineering works. Seriously, it's like 45 minutes of them digging wells, building aqueducts, growing crops. It's crazy.
Anyway, the whole movie you're just along for the ride, not sure where it is going but at some point you realize there's going to be a battle. And by god, what a battle. The Battle for Jerusalem. I've never seen such a huge battlefield in a movie in my life. The amount of people involved in these shots is insane. It is literally 45 minutes of full-on siege warfare on an insane scale. Plus an amazing payoff in the epilogue showing the pointlessness of it all. And endless cycle of bloodshed over a piece of land. Very poignant.
Just like every man thinks about the Roman Empire on a daily basis, I'm sure almost every man thinks about the Crusades in some way or form on a regular basis. Go watch this movie asap. Some things feel archaic, like the cliché antagonist's over-the-top hatred for the protagonist, but the visuals, the scale, the spectacle are overwhelming.
Banger cast: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Liam Neeson, Edward Norton, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, David Thewlis, Martin Sheen.
