Last weekend, after a fine day spent helping my girlfriend's brother's girlfriend move into a new apartment and then eating delicious cheesesteak sandwiches at Piccolo's in Hoboken, we went to see Kingdom of Heaven at the Battery Park Theater(which, FYI, always has empty seats for opening weekends of big movies.).
I give it a qualified thumbs up.
On the negative side:
1-Orlando Bloom(decent but no gravitas);
2-Eva Green, who morphs from Natalie Portman in Star Wars to Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, and finally into Liv Tyler in LOTR;
3-Too much epic, slow-motion music-swelling, golden-lighted "look how important this is" style fimmaking. As far as I'm concerned, the more they do that, the less important it feels.
On the plus side:
1-A fascinating period of history, full of the best and worst of humanity
2-Great swordfights
3-Excellent acting from, among others, Liam Neeson, David Thewlis, Jeremy Irons, and especially Ghassan Massoud as Saladin, the baddest motherfucker on the planet at the time. Lethal, noble and charismatic as hell, this guy should have been the focus of the movie.
So, on balance, I'd say yes, it has problems, but if you don't see it, I'll be forced to lay siege to your cities, slaughter your menfolk, and sell your women and children into slavery.
So that's like, 3 stars out of 5.
