Kingdom of Heaven

Orlando Bloom plays a young blacksmith (This sounds oddly familiar...) that's thrust into an unlikely life-or-death situation (Hold on a sec...) for this historical Epic picture (Gods dammit, not again!).

The year is 1184 and the First Crusade comes to Jerusalem - Bloom, a medieval atheist (as if such a thing ever existed...) finds his loyalties caught between the honourable yet conquering Christians or the familiar but deceitful Muslims. Presumably there's a girl involved somewhere, otherwise the film would probably be a lot simpler

I can't but help getting the feeling that we've seen this all before, just under different skin - if not from Gladiator but from Troy with a smattering of Pirates of the Carribean. That, and I'm filled with the black, cold belief that ANYONE with even passing knowledge in the Crusades will be pointing out plot and continuity errors left, right and centre - such is the Hollywood way.

Having said that, though.... I'm a sucker for a decent medieval romp and with Jeremy Irons among the leading cast it's far from a still-born Turkey at this point in time.

Whether or not that changes between now and hitting the box office is a different matter - any thoughts?

I'm sick of boring, over-glorified war epics. This looks like it'll be one of them.

Sounds pretty good to me. Though as a History major I will have a hard time turning off my bullshit-o-meter. Either way I'll rent it if I don't make it to the theater.

I think this recent run of shitty Epics is just going to ruin 300's chances of being decently made.

I think it looks a lot like a Gladiator/Troy rehash.

From what I've seen this one looks as though it will be a little grittier than Troy (In my opinion Troy had that hollywood glow to it, which detracted from it somewhat). I think it will be something more akin to Gladiator, though I'm really not sure. I am excited to see it, even if only for Liam Neeson's part. I think the history will be fairly inaccurate, but that didn't stop me from enjoying Gladiator so hopefully it won't harm me hear.

Orlando Bloom = Typecast.

I'm sick of fucking epics. Troy, Gladiator, Alexander, they got not one, but TWO Hannibal (the conqueror, not the cannibal) movies in the works... Goddammit. ENOUGH.

I'll skip this one, thank you very much.

I'm really looking forward to this one. I have been waiting a long time for a historical/war movie to come along and toppled Gladiator from its throne. Troy was a dissapointment, and from what I heard, poor Alexander didn't get justice given to his life on screen. King Arthur my favorite movie to come out in this genre, but I live with THREE history majors, so like Trikstermyth's bullshit-o-meter, I really couldn't enjoy King Arthur as much as I wanted to with my roomates yelling at the screen constantly.

From what I've seen Kingdom of Heaven looks to be good. Done by the same director of Gladiator and with music by The Freaking Man Harry-Gregson Williams I can't wait to see this.

And then there's the acting of Edward Norton, and Jeremy Irons to look forward to. I'm one psyched puppy.

Okay, I admit there have been more than a few epics to come out lately but I for one have enjoyed most of them. Maybe it's just me but I loves me the epics, nice long movies with loads of story and character development, it just doesn't get much better.

Also I'm just curious as to how you think Orlando Bloom is type cast TMFT? I know LotR was quite the epic but I can't think that it will compare horribly to Kingdom of Heaven. Maybe I'm wrong but I just don't see it. I guess The Illusionist's words could hold true, but again I don't think this one is going to be similar to Pirates of the Carribean to any extreme.

Anyways I'm psyched.



Then I saw this. Now I can't freakin' wait. Yep this is gonna be a good one.

That was more a joke about Bloom playing a blacksmith in the middle of an unlikely situation than it was about anything historical or comparative between the Crusades and the 18th Century Pirate laws.

Far from type-cast, as TMFT put it, but definately a trend forming - Bloom is heading the way of the eternally glamorous Hero, which people are soon going to get tired of in my opinion.

True, true. I guess I should have worded my past post in a different way. I didn't mean to imply that I have any liking for Bloom, to be honest if the movie fails I wouldn't be surprised if it was becuase of his performance. But yeah thanks for clarifying that point Iluusionist, I can certainly see that.

Sorry, I can't get my head around seeing Orlando in another "poor, underpriveliged labourer who ends up saving the day" movie. He never really looks to me like he'd actually FIT in that sort of role. They need someone a little more... manly? Someone who would look kind of normal in grease and dirt, and someone who doesn't look like they're afraid to get their fingernails dirty.

And, I'm really sick of the war movies. Troy, King Arthur, Alexander and now Kingdom of Heaven? WTF man, none of them did exceptionally well, so I wouldn't mind if they cut the crap with the war stuff.

Orlando needs to STOP doing the same sort of movies - show some versatility as an actor.

Orlando does the movies that are offered to him that he likes. So what if they're the same kind? If they're good movies with good stories and cinematography, fine by me. I actually do like Orlando quite a bit but I was a bit sceptical of his first big lead. But I think the movie sounds pretty good and the commercials looked fantastic. Orlando's going to do a good job.I think the movie is going to be pretty good.

And he doesn't only do movies of that genre; he's got Haven and Elizabethtown coming up and they're set in the present time. No epics. Read up on it.

I agree with you here Orelinde, what's wrong weith being a little type cast? John Wayne is heralded as one of the world's greatest actors (by some people at least) and I can't think of a signal movie he's in that's not a western or a war pic (though I'm sure there are some out there).

Comments?

I would like to point out that Orlando's only other movie available where he plays the lead role was The Calcium Kid, in which an amateur boxer drinks 4 pints of milk per day and as such has unbreakable bones.

Yeah, that's what I thought, too...

Bwahaha. I agree that Hollywood seems to have found themselves in an 'epic' trend. But that's Hollywood for you. When a certain type of movie makes it big, then others want to cash in on it and do the same type. Orlando Bloom is an actor that stars is epic films. There's nothing wrong with that.
However, as Illu said, it seems that Bloom is playing the same role in movies.
Kingdom of Heaven, I hope, will stay true to history. The story of the Crusades is a good one. But I'm sure that a love relationship will also be in it.

I have a hard time believing that Holiwood will be able to stay "true" to hisory since it is most like going to be pandering to the public who as a majority elected a very Christian president. Seeing as how the crusades consisted of wholesale slaughter by the Crusaders (at least the "important bits" that seem to get mentioned alot of the time).

Then again, with the current political situation, you never know.

Blaidd

You make a good point Blaidd, but I'd like to think that if a movie like Farenheit 9/11 can get passed through hollywood than Kingdom of Heaven can get by without being too heavily swayed by politics. I'm not saying it's going to hold true to history, mostly because history doesn't always make for a great movie, but I'd like to think that politics won't be an influence.

That's true. If there's one thing Farenheit 9/11 taught us about Hollywood, it's that history and facts don't really matter when making a film based on history and facts. With that established, Kingdom of Heaven should be awesome.

Simply coming from a history major's background, it is a given that they will get stuff wrong, although Ridley Scott is the director and he did an awesome job with Gladiator. I also agree with Bloom acting the same part time and time again, it would be nice to see someone 'manlier' do the part but maybe he fits it.

The big problem I see with the movie is the politics, it could be a huge diaster if it takes the 'Christians are pure and good, Muslims are dirty and evil' stance but I don't think they will make the movie anywhere near that simplistic. I think that Ridley Scott will *hopefully* be able to do a good enough job that I enjoy the movie enough to turn the bullshit detector off. (as a side note, that bullshit detector doesn't get turned off too many times, and the worst was Timeline, the book was fantastic, the movie was beyond horrid)

Anyways, although Kingdom of Heaven is an epic and Hollywood has seen its fair share of epics lately, it could be awesome.

(edit) By the way, Arden if you like King Arthur, you might like the Lailoken Tales and the Life of Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Actually, any time I've heard the story of the Crusades it had more of a light of "wow, those poor Muslims being slaughterd by those arrogant Europeans." So I can't imagine a movie that sides with the Crusaders.

But that just might be my liberal education talking.

Truth be told, both sides could be as bad as each other.

Arguably the Muslim side did more damage, though probably because they kept winning after massacaring hundreds of bull-headed european Knights rather than out of sheer brutality

Since Orlando Bloom is playing a character caught "in the middle" so to speak, I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw these sort of sentiments (that both sides were, ultimately, comprised of killers and zealots, I mean).

I think that "HANNIBAL the Conqueror" Will be an awesome movie..I tell you why!
#1-imagine david(carthage) and galiath(rome)
#2-africans agains europeans..gladiator style!
#3-after the defeat of carthage by scipio(?) africanaus the great roman general- later on...centuries later..the Moores (africans) took revenge by invading Italy & completely change sicily and the Italians forever.

now going back to Hannibal!

Have you ever wondered why the Carthaginian leader and enemy of Rome known as Hannibal retained his reputation as a formidable opponent and great military leader even after Hannibal and the Carthaginians lost the Punic Wars? A Belgian professor provides a cogent answer about HANNIBAL OF CARTHAGE on the Ancient / Classical History Forum:

He simply is :-p
After Hannibal, the great African General got over the Alps, his army was heavilly weakened. He only had 25,000 foot soldiers, a couple of elephants and 6000 (excellent) Numidian horsemen (think present day Sudan rebel fighters on horse and macheties)left. He had the luck that Scipio didn't arrive immediately (in which case he would have been defeated) but the loss of more then 30,000 veterans was terrible. The Gauls that he managed to persuade to join him were of some use (they could be sacrificed) but weren't the fighters they once were. Above that, the Roman legionnaires were (in that time) the best soldiers of the world. They made up for the mistakes of many generals. Not only did he have to fight these soldiers -- who had the advantage of fighting on their own land -- but the enemy had more than 200,000 of them.

So, with 50,000 men and 6,000 horsemen, Hannibal had to fight 200,000 footsoldiers. Even if he could defeat them, he had to conquer/persuade the Latins, Samnites, Etruscans, Greeks ... to join his cause (he noticed that persuading the Latins was impossible, which was one of the reasons that he lost the war). He didn't win the war.... No, but he managed to stay in the enemy's land for 15 years (218-203)! Plus he didn't lose one great battle (except, of course, Zama). Only a military genius could manage that.