Kingdom of Heaven

Better than "Gladiator" -- deeper, more thoughtful, more about human motivation and less about action.

Fulfills the requirements of grand-scale moviemaking while serving as a timely reminder that in the conflict between Christianity and Islam it was the Christians who picked the first fight.

Odd as it is to say, Kingdom of Heaven loses its momentum the more Balian gets religion.

What sucks the wind out of the movie's sails is the vacuum at its core.

A handful of nifty battle scenes and some decent performances aren't quite enough to make Kingdom memorable.

I'd have a lot more respect for Scott if he were actually the virtuoso he pretends to be. "Gladiator" had lousy, disjunctive action, and Kingdom of Heaven is even more maladroit.

To introduce an archetype like this to western audiences -- as the world weathers culturally and religiously demonizing times -- may have been worth this whole flawed movie. Too bad the story didn't just start with him.

The director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven is an absolutely phenomenal film. Visually, Ridley Scott pushes the boat out past even his high standards. Kingdom of Heaven is one of the most beautiful looking historical epics ever made. It's also emotionally engaging, superbly acted and informative. Just make sure you're watching the director's cut and not the muddled theatrical version.

On the one side the setting of the movie is great, because there are not many new epic movies about the middle age. Also the siege of Jerusalem was nicely done and there are popular actors. The effects are very good, many pictures are beautiful and the details are great thanks to a big budget. But I dont like Orlando Bloom, here, he is somehow not sympathetic. His character Balian was also a bit unrealistic, boring and annoying, because it is so one-sided shiny. In addition he was a blacksmith, then farmer, general and fighter...suddenly and without years of training, what a joke. Overall most of the characters were superficial and one-sided, only Saladin was interesting and grey. The story is just average and could have more details.

Jesus sooo bad!!! But the end of the movie is quite good just a little ... Spoiler: Without training, the blacksmith will be a professional swordsman and then a fearless warrior. It would have been at least a few years of training ... In the end, instead of a completely unambiguous solution, in the name of some imagined purity (holiness), he successfully - indirectly - successfully sends all the knights to their deaths. But no problem, then the commoners will become knights as he became and they will definitely become great warriors without training XXXDDD

An awful propaganda film which deliberately retells history to fit the filmmaker's dogmas. The action is decent, but nothing special, and that's the one semi-redeeming aspect of this mess.

Ridley Scott tries to rehash the same grandiose style that did him well in 'Gladiator' for the pitiful 'Kingdom of Heaven' but the terrible script/screenplay leaves no room for the viewer to have any interest in either the surplus battle scenes, the undeveloped characters, or the nonexistent plot. And as far as acting goes, Orlando Bloom is to Russell Crowe as Shia LaBeouf is to Harrison Ford.