Kingdom Of Heaven

After a Totally Smashed out saturday I dragged my sorry self outta bed on sunday and caught the 1830hrs :-) Kingdom of heaven show at Regal. Ridley Scott cast Orlando Bloom (Wonder how he made it out of school untraumatised with that name :-)) Anyways his performance was rather subdued. I felt that Viggo Mortensen (of Aragon - Lord of the Rings fame) would have done a better job with the same role.

It is a movie set in the year 1185, the location: the burning sands of Jerusalem. The mission: a blacksmith doing his duty. Ridley Scott has captured the fearlessness and the honour of the Crusaders very well. It is a gripping epic that keeps you sitting upright for all the two and a half hours. The fight scenes are pretty graphic and the battles are done in perfect detail.

The crusaders were supposed to be a strong passionate army completely driven by zeal - The army of the Lord. The warriors brave and fearsome. And that their leader would have 10 times these qualities and the personality. It is said that at war their first attack was the most terrible and the second was a formality. These qualities seemed to be missing in Orlando. Always felt that Orlando would be better in a romantic comedy role. Because of the strength of his character he pulled it off ok.

The depiction of the war was excellent; The cinematography, the depiction of the strategies, the planning scenes et al. It was the small things that moved the audience like the moment when Saladin sees the Crucifix toppled over on the floor. He pauses, bends over and picks it up. He sets it upright on a ledge showing him as a person of great moral rectitude. Even the scene where Balian (Bloom) spares the life of the servant of the man he fought for a horse is touching. This mans turns out to be the master and Orlando meets him later on where the man returns the favour.

Sybilla (Eva Green) is the sister of the king of the Crusaders(who is dying of leperosy) asks Balian a very interesting question in the movie. "Can you not do a little evil for greater good?" She asks him this as she asks him to marry her. She knows her brother is dying and when he did she would be the next queen and her husband the blood thirsty Guy de Lusignan would have complete command over the warriors in white. Balian declines.... again on grounds of honour.

As a movie with knights, blood thirsty kings, bitter enemies and a man seeking forgiveness there was a strong theme of honour that ran through the movie. In todays world there is a lot less of that to be seen. It is the most easiest thing to have yet is the most difficult to uphold. OK I am going off on a tangent here.

It is an insightful and an excellent movie - a 9 out of 10! at least.

I found a bit of trivia about the movie on this site.