Kingdom of Heaven - My Review

You may want to skip this if you haven't seen the movie yet, although my review contains no plot spoilers.

In a nutshell..

Very well-intentioned.. a great universal message of religious tolerance that will either reinforce your existing beliefs or clash with them if you're the intolerant fundamentalist type... The movie is not strong enough to gain any new converts to the cause of tolerance.

Gory battle scenes with gallons of blood spraying onto the screen, and practically into my popcorn. For some reason, it all turns murky and muddy during the battles and the bodies and severed limbs all get mixed up on-screen and you don't know who's fighting who, or even who's winning.

As the lead character, Bailian, Orlando Bloom had no charisma whatsoever. None I tell you!! Salaheddine Al-Ayoubi is played by Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud, and he had charisma to spare... sadly none of it rubbed off on poor Orlando. It was nice to see Egyptian actor Khaled Al-Nabawi in a big production, albeit in an unclear role (I had no idea who he was playing). Eva Green as Princess Sybilla was pretty hot too. Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons were their usual terrific selves.

The film must have been shot in Morocco, because the snow-capped Atlas mountains were very visible. I don't recall the Holy Lands having any mountains this high, just as I'm sure their ain't no PLO ski team. The palaces in supposed Jerusalem resembled a Moroccan spa, as I imagine Marrakesh to be (never been there, but on my list of must-see destinations).

The Arabic subtitles insisted on calling Jerusalem in its Hebrew name, Orshalem اورشليم .. and only occasionaly referred to it as Al-Quds القدس... No idea why.

The Censors: A brief romantic scene was obviously cut, this being Kuwait and all... but from what I've read elsewhere we didn't miss much. One deletion that defied logic was when Bailian (Bloom) was giving his speech to the people of Jerusalem and listing both Muslim and Christian historical claims on Jerusalem. The Christian claims were mentioned in full, whereas the Muslim claims were cut out. WTF???!!

Verdict: Go see it. Keep your expectations low.

Unrelated.. why the hell couldn't the weather be this nice on Thursday? After the movie, we went for a bite at Marina Crescent and it was amazingly cool for May!