Kingdom of Heaven

A couple weekends ago my brother and I watched Kingdom of Heaven. I watched it in college, but I couldn't really remember anything except that Qui-gon (aka Liam Neeson) was in it, and that I was very confused about what was going on. I don't remember disliking it at all so I thought maybe I'd give it another go and see if I understood it and enjoyed it more the second time around.

Upon further research I discovered that Orlando Bloom was the main character, definitely didn't remember that, and Celeborn was also in it, turns out he's one of the main bad guys. So anything with LOTR and Star Wars connections will be good right? Even had a "I am your father" thrown in there for good measure. The crowd went wild on that one.

The movie was not nearly as complicated and confusing as I recall, so I must have been distracted the first time. There are a few characters who aren't clearly identified and you have to piece together who they are and a couple times we thought it was a new character talking and then realized that he was from a previous scene and we already knew that guy. It's a movie where you need to pay attention to understand what is happening, but it wasn't on a Bourne trilogy or Matrix level of confusion by a long shot.

I thought the movie was well done overall. I don't want to give away too many plot details but the main story is about a young Frenchman who is going to the Holy Land to find forgiveness during the time between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades. Jerusalem is in the hands of the Christians, and Saladin is the Muslim leader.

There are several battle sequences which are the predominant reason for the R rating. I did not like the way the battles were filmed. There was tons of blood spurting up everywhere which looked fake and alot of it was sped up for an intensifying effect I guess, but I thought it made it look cheap and unrealistic.

The music was done by Harry Gregson-Williams who also composed the first two Narnia soundtracks. I really enjoyed it. There are a couple tracks, The Battle of Kerak is the most noticeable, where it just screams "Harry Gregson-Williams wrote me!!!" There is a nice middle eastern flair to the soundtrack though which blends well in the movie.

Orlando wasn't bad either. For some reason I've had a deep seated dislike of him since FOTR came out. I'm not sure why, and when I think about it, I can't think of any reasons to dislike him. I think the things people make fun of him for as Legolas were not up to the actor. This wasn't an award winning performance to me and it doesn't make him one of my favorite actors or anything, but I think it helped him overcome my dislike a little bit.  

All in all I really liked it, and plan on watching it again. It is very violent and intense though, and I can't watch those types of movies too often even if I enjoy them. I'd recommend this to people who like historical war movies and are ok with lots of R rated fighting. I think my mother would enjoy the plot part of it, but she would have her eyes closed for 75% of the movie so it wouldn't be worth it.

Also the guy who voices Scar in the Lion King is in it. I totally guessed it and my brother didn't think it was true until I looked it up on-line.