That wise phrase was uttered by a Catholic bishop as the Muslim army is on the brink of storming the Walls of Jerusalem…..
We saw Kingdom of Heaven last night with my bro. He’s back in town – yeah!
[from allposters.com]
Orlando Bloom looked hot as a scruffy brunette. I suppose the blonde look would have went over a wee bit delicate for this Crusade tale.
It was also neat to Dr. Julian Bashir [Alexander Siddig] from DS9 – in a pivotol role.
[from mesapollons.free.fr]
The Kingdom of Heaven follows the adventures of Balian of Ibelin – a simple blacksmith – into Jerusalem. He becomes a knight and takes on the responsiblity of defending the people of Jerusalem. It’s an epic story – with plenty of lectures on religious and moral obligations to the Christian faith and to all the different people of faith who live in the Holy Land. Bloom wisely keeps his mouth shut as the veteran Crusaders dispense advice on top of advice.
As soon as the film gets over it’s obligation to outline all the arguements for war and peace – the storyline kicks in….and it get’s more interesting.
Ridley Scott is a master of the violent action scenes – plenty of close-ups on gore, slashing swords, severed body parts and the slow-motion music montages that follow Balian’s battle to survive. OK – granted…I had some pretty shitty seats – front and center….and I had to crane my neck to take in everything. Despite my shitty seat – I still appreciated the fight choreography and the cinematography.
The love tangent got on my nerves…a bit…I didn’t like Sibylla – the future queen of Jerusalem. An obvious flirt with delusions of wit. But her character plays another important twist in the storyline.
I enjoyed the film – good storyline and good character development.
The movie was deeper philosophically than you give it credit for … for starters, it’s actually refreshing to see a Crusades-era story that’s not told from an Anglo/Christian-centric POV. It earned quite a few raves from Muslim groups for portraying their side a lot more accurately than other movies in that setting. The fact that it was also set in a time of peace/truce illustrated that peace is possible in the Middle East. Yet at the same time, it also demonstrated that all it takes is extremists on either/both sides to break that uneasy peace, something that still haunts the peace process to this day. It had the idealistic moral that Jerusalem belongs to the people, and is not exclusive to any particular faith. There was also the moral dilemma faced by Balian in being forced to choose between his own moral values and the peace of the kingdom, a faint echo of the Last Temptation. That’s quite a bit of fodder for discussion.