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mitchy at 03:55pm on 13/05/2005
mitchy at 03:55pm on 13/05/2005Last night, I went to see "Kingdom of Heaven" with the ever lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thalinoviel. We had a good time and I got a brief glimpse of her new kitty cat, by dint of peering under their sofa and spotting a black and white furry shape that I am assured was the cat :)
The movie itself was...interesting. It was long. Not as painfully long as "Alexander", but longer than it really deserved to be. The pacing was well off for the first two thirds of the movie and only really picked up once we got to the battle to save Jerusalem.
Orlando - *sigh* I love Orly and in movies where he has a strong actor to play off, such as Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean", he's great. But he cannot (yet) carry a movie. His character, Balian, was a real historical figure who achieved a fantastic thing in saving the people of the city from Salah ah Din. He would have had to have been very charismatic, a superb tactician and a very pragmatic man, yet this was only really hinted at, you NEVER got the feeling of being in the presence of a dynamic force through Orly's acting. I hesitate to use the word "wooden", because he was a bit better than that. Flat, maybe, describes how he played the guy. There were flashes of what the character could have been during the penultimate battle sequences but as to how the character got to be that person, that was left to the imagination. It was never seriously addressed how, in this version of the story at least, a humble blacksmith learned how to defend a city or suddenly became a good enough swordsman that he survived the battles himself.
Historically, Ridley Scott and his screenwriter did a superb job in condensing the story down to fit a shorter time frame. Yes, they've tweaked and changed, but in terms of the actual events, the movie is surprisingly accurate. In places. *heh* Which is still far more than you expect from most Hollywood films. There is an excellent web page here to that shows what was true and what wasn't, for the curious.
The supporting cast are uniformly superb, with excellent turns from Alexander Siddig (yes, Dr Bashir) and Jeremy Irons in particular. Marton Csokas puts in another good performance and even manages to smother his accent, hurrah! It's clear why there are so many good names alongside Orly - he needed the help.
The costuming (shoo in for an Oscar nom, btw), sets and battles scenes were just awesome, but then you'd expect that from the man who made Gladiator. It's just a pity that this movie never reaches Gladiator's heights and that is frustrating because this is a terrific story and, yes, it's still rather relevant to today. Overall, I'll give it 3 stars out of 5.
thalinoviel. We had a good time and I got a brief glimpse of her new kitty cat, by dint of peering under their sofa and spotting a black and white furry shape that I am assured was the cat :)The movie itself was...interesting. It was long. Not as painfully long as "Alexander", but longer than it really deserved to be. The pacing was well off for the first two thirds of the movie and only really picked up once we got to the battle to save Jerusalem.
Orlando - *sigh* I love Orly and in movies where he has a strong actor to play off, such as Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean", he's great. But he cannot (yet) carry a movie. His character, Balian, was a real historical figure who achieved a fantastic thing in saving the people of the city from Salah ah Din. He would have had to have been very charismatic, a superb tactician and a very pragmatic man, yet this was only really hinted at, you NEVER got the feeling of being in the presence of a dynamic force through Orly's acting. I hesitate to use the word "wooden", because he was a bit better than that. Flat, maybe, describes how he played the guy. There were flashes of what the character could have been during the penultimate battle sequences but as to how the character got to be that person, that was left to the imagination. It was never seriously addressed how, in this version of the story at least, a humble blacksmith learned how to defend a city or suddenly became a good enough swordsman that he survived the battles himself.
Historically, Ridley Scott and his screenwriter did a superb job in condensing the story down to fit a shorter time frame. Yes, they've tweaked and changed, but in terms of the actual events, the movie is surprisingly accurate. In places. *heh* Which is still far more than you expect from most Hollywood films. There is an excellent web page here to that shows what was true and what wasn't, for the curious.
The supporting cast are uniformly superb, with excellent turns from Alexander Siddig (yes, Dr Bashir) and Jeremy Irons in particular. Marton Csokas puts in another good performance and even manages to smother his accent, hurrah! It's clear why there are so many good names alongside Orly - he needed the help.
The costuming (shoo in for an Oscar nom, btw), sets and battles scenes were just awesome, but then you'd expect that from the man who made Gladiator. It's just a pity that this movie never reaches Gladiator's heights and that is frustrating because this is a terrific story and, yes, it's still rather relevant to today. Overall, I'll give it 3 stars out of 5.
cheerful