Stephane does website work for the Vaneast Theater, and therefor he can go see free movies whenever he wants. He took me to Kingdom of Heaven last night. I give it a 4/10. The costumes and props were fantastic and it had Alexander Siddig from DS9 but Orlando’s acting was as flat as a tortilla (and not one that’s been rolled up around delicious fixin’s), and the action was mostly the stupid kind where they shake the camera a lot and do a lot of quick cuts. Also a lot of it made no sense, and the characters’ ideals and philosophies seemed to flip flop whenever the story called for it. Boo, I say.
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I saw it a couple of weekends ago and liked it a little more than you did. I tried to not get too hung up on the authenticity of it all, although the more egregious pro-democracy bits of it did bother me. The “Kingdom of Heaven” was indeed a land of opportunity, but only for the younger sons of the titled aristocracy of Europe, who had no prospects back home but still came from aristocratic families. The real Balian at the siege of Jerusalem (who was actually Balian II), was the grandson of one of these younger sons who came to the Holy Land and received Ibelin as his fiefdom for services rendered.
The scene where he knights everyone, for instance, is semi-authentic — the real Balian knighted everyone 16 and over who was of noble birth.
Anyway, I was proud of Ridley for somewhat accurately portraying the fact that the Muslims were actually far more civilized than the Crusaders, and that Saladin was far more chivalrous than most of the European knights and certainly their leaders.