Friends warned me not to watch this but I went ahead all the same and the “Kingdom of Heaven” hit me with all its sword swinging gore and naked man boob intermissions. Cut. Sorry, what was that? Come again? First, Orlando Bloom is miscast. Yes. Please wake up and smell the humus. Bloom is not a bad actor. OK, most people think he is, apart from the girls who like the afore mentioned man boobs. Anyhow, he is not the man who leads soldiers into their deaths (fake beard or not); they would just laugh and point at him. At least in “Troy” he got to play the pansy wearing a silly short skirt but Ridley Scott had to make a manly blacksmith out of this “Milchbrötchen” who inspires whole legions to give their lives for a mere idea of what Jerusalem is supposed to be? What is it worth? Nothing – and everything. There you have the best quote from the movie spoken by the only actor actually worth mentioning in this horrible “no story and all show” debacle.
Edward Norton as “King Baldwin” is good, as far as the script permits but it doesn’t help making him wear a mask all the time, crippling his performance. Liam Neeson has a short appearance in the beginning of the movie and makes the most of it. Good man. And Jeremy Irons has seen better days than this. “Who was he”, you ask? Well, “Tiberias” of course. What am I getting at? This is not a movie about characters or their development, it is solely about effects, about swords cutting heads off and arrows sticking out of skulls and we have better movies for that, thank you.
Ridley Scott announced that he wanted to put the story (his story, not what actually happened, don’t be so foolish as to think this has anything to do with accurately depicting actual historic events, it does not) back into “Kingdom of Heaven” and release a Director’s Cut so I suggest – if you really cannot withstand the urge to buy the DVD – to wait until he does, for the theatrical release does suck immensely.
4/10
“The Illusionist” (2006) tells the tale of true love lost at child’s age (or rather torn apart) and found again years later, saved by a net of illusions. What is real what is illusion? Eisenheim (Edward Norton) the Illusionist has mastered his art and comes back for the love of his life (Jessica Biel) years after and tries to rescue her from the clutches of Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) which leads to her being murdered or is she?