Kingdom Of Heaven

Sound familiar? But first, let’s hit some previews.

MR. AND MRS. SMITH—This still looks like War Of The Roses meets True Lies. Looks pretty funny, though. Hopefully the whole “Brad and Angelina” thing doesn’t ruin it. I’ll see it.

WAR OF THE WORLDS—It looks like Spielberg is finally getting back with the bad dad plot line. Unfortunately, it’s with Tom Cruise. Remember the good ol’ days when Richard Dreyfuss was his muse?

Actually, I can’t wait for this one. It looks like it could be a lot of fun in the way the ID4 tried to be. And, hey! It’s got the same storyline!

That’s it for the previews. This was a sneak, so all of the previews haven’t been put on yet.

Kingdom Of Heaven is about Balian (Orlando Bloom), a man whose Christian morals don’t include killing Muslims just for the hell of it. Unfortunately, he lives in a world where the “Moral Majority” is actually a VERY loud minority. They are led by Guy de Lusignan, a man who would like to kill anyone whom he deems not worthy of God’s love. This, of course, include Balian.

On the more moral side of the Christian majority is Tiberias (Jeremy Irons). He fights with de Lusignan constantly trying to keep the peace with the Muslims who also want Jerusalem. He knows, as Balian does, that the city is holy to just about everyone. The Christians only live there.

The problem is that de Lusignan is married to Sibylla (Eva Green), King Baldwin’s (Edward Norton, but you wouldn’t know it) sister. And King Baldwin is a leper, so he is not long for the mortal coil.

So now it’s up to Balian to protect the city from de Lusignan’s stupidity.

For a movie about 1000 year old events, the story if very topical. I was constantly reminded of our current situation and how the so-called “Moral Majority” has taken over. But that is a rant for another day. Let’s just say, I can see why Ridley Scott chose this time to make this film.

The film itself is more Braveheart than any movie that has tried to be Braveheart. It starts with a young man who doesn’t want to be a hero, but is thrust into it by the death of his wife and a father that he never knew (Liam Neeson—if you need a father/teacher figure who is going to die in the first 20 minutes of the film, call Liam). He is then stuck in the middle of a religious battle that he didn’t want in the first place. There’s even a “They’ll never take our FREEDOM!!!” speech. And it kinda works this time.

What’s really interesting about this film is that no one is made to look completely good or bad (except for Bush, er, Guy). Half of the Christians don’t want the battle that started the Crusades. The other half are assholes. The Muslims are forced into fighting by the evil half of the Christians. For the most part, they are good, honorable people who are only trying to get back the body of someone that the bad Christians killed. Later it turns into a fight for Jerusalem.

The cast is, of course, awesome. There’s not a false note in the film from anyone. Even Orlando is above par in his 495th medieval war film. (I like the guy, too, but he was a little weak the last time we saw him in Troy.) And Brendan Gleeson is especially insane as a warmongering priest. (Hey! Another Braveheart connection!)

Eva Green was pretty good as the woman who won Balian’s heart, if only she hadn’t been married to the asshole. And I just recently read where Eva was pissed off that her rather explicit sex scenes with Orlando were cut. Apparently they “spent a lot of time” getting them just right. Yeah. I bet. I guess we’ll just have to wait for DVD, huh?

And, yes, there was a lot of smoke and fog. It wouldn’t be a Ridley Scott movie if there was no smoke and fog.

Overall, a really good movie. I’ve never really known very much about the Crusades and it’s good to get a pretty unbiased view of how they started. All of the characters (except for Liam Neeson’s) are real characters, so I figure the film is pretty close to the truth. (I’ve read that Baldwin actually died about a year before the big battle. Oh well.) And hopefully it does well enough so that the sword and sandal epic isn’t destroyed forever. We’ll see.