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I settled in for what I thought would be a great epic movie. What it turned out to be was a movie with a poorly-developing storyline transparently influenced by Hollywood values (see Most Annoying Trait in History Films for more info), some bad characters, good cinematography and battle scenes, and mediocre script. For background, the Crusade of the story was supposed to have been right before the Third Crusade; the Masked Leper King was Baldwin IV; and some of the other events (such as the murder of Raynald by Saladin for drinking out of the goblet) are true. Toward the end of the movie, King Richard the Lionheart swings by the blacksmith shop to bring Orlando Bloom back to Jerusalem for another Crusade. The actual events date to the mid- to late-1180s..I have mixed feelings about the movie. I didn't like the way it began - with a father (Liam Neeson) returning to his son (Orlando Bloom) out of the blue to bring him on a Crusade. The son, being saddened by his wife's suicide, ends up killing the person who just advised him to go with this father. For some reason, the son then immediately takes him up on that advice while leaving his place of work in a fiery blaze. Eventful, but very poor indeed.While in Jerusalem, the son is transformed into a leader while he loses his Christian faith, and replaces it with a sort of moral philosophy which, by today's standards, would seem rather normal. Over the course of time, we learn that he's not alone in his beliefs - all the good characters seem to prefer such a philosophy over organized religion, which is epitomized by a bumbling bishop. If you'd never experienced a Hollywood editorial before, well, there you go.Don't get me wrong - the battle scenes are impressive and the action is not over-the-top; there's just the right amount so that it doesn't swallow up the story (I actually prefer this to endless battle scenes, as we saw in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy). Spirituality was addressed, which was good, but it didn't really seem to be genuine (not surprising).
I agree, the movie fell short of its potential. Liam Neeson’s character could have hung around a little longer. It was as if they couldn’t wait to kill him off……….guess he had too many committments with Batman Begins to do much more than he did. Orlando Bloom finally stepped up to being the “main guy” as he was just a sidekick in LOTR and in Troy as Paris. Troy was a far better movie I thought. Even Alexander was better and I hate Oliver Stone.
I liked the story in Troy…but then again, if it were a bad story, it probably wouldn’t have lasted for thousands of years. The Brad Pitt glamor of the movie was sort of annoying, but otherwise, it was fairly good.
As I looked through some of the history of the Crusades, I realized that the events of Kingdom of Heaven seemed pretty accurate. I had thought that Richard the Lionheart went crusading in the 1200s, which would have made the chronology of the story sort of awkward. But lo and behold, he went in the early 1190s, which makes his stop in France (to recruit Orlando Bloom) at least plausable.
Of course, in 1185 Baldwin IV dies and is followed by his child son, Baldwin V, who "reigns" until he dies a year later, when Sybilla takes over. In the movie, there is no son to intercept the kingdom before Sybilla gets it.
Also interesting about the movie is that Edward Norton played the role of the Leper King. I would not have guessed that one.The movie was shallow in parts…obviously Hollywood creeps into history at times. They also noted somewhere (perhaps I saw it on the History Channel) that flaming rocks would not have been thrown from trebuchets…..they probably used them in the movie because they go “boom” and fire makes for exciting cinema.
