Posted on 04/29/2005 1:00:01 PM PDT by missyme
We recently attended a preview of director Ridley Scott's crusader epic, "Kingdom of Heaven," which opens nationally May 6. The $130 million film -- which stars Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons -- tells the story of a 12th century blacksmith who rises to defend Jerusalem from Muslim invaders.
We're unable to officially review the film until its release, but we had these observations:
Although Scott put "Kingdom" in development before the 9/11 attacks, it's obvious that the War on Terror forms the backdrop for the film. "Kingdom of Heaven" is clearly intended to be a parable for our time, and it's therefore disappointing that a director of Scott's skill and experience (directing classics like "Alien," "Blade Runner" and "Gladiator") would opt for such a conventional, secular-liberal interpretation of the present conflict.
Even with its gorgeous settings, splendid action sequences, and some fine performances by Neeson and Irons, "Kingdom of Heaven" wears its politics too much on its sleeve.
The Western crusaders are too often dismissed as bloodthirsty and rapacious, and religion itself (both Christianity and Islam) is reduced to little more than a source of fanaticism. Scott doesn't glamorize the Islamic cause -- yet he can't understand it, either. Neither side's worldview is explored in any depth, because Scott assumes that war is the natural outflow of religion -- any religion.
Liberal Hollywood is struggling to find its voice in the post-9/11 world. Ridley Scott's effort may be the most ambitious yet in this regard, but the limitations of the liberal wordview in understanding our current struggle are become more obvious by the day. Aesthetically, "Kingdom of Heaven" may be a huge leap forward from "Fahrenheit 9/11," but its values are only baby steps removed.
And I will lay money down that all three of them will be bitching about "Bush's War For Oil".....
I hate Hollywood.
I really don't think that most in the movie audiences are catching on to these liberal messages. They go to a movie to see the story, action, a particular star...not to get their politics. Some that have been seen as political are fairly subtle too, esp. when they place them in such long-ago historical timeframes.
That's a pretty long leap to make. If some computer programmer says the same thing would you say 'I hate IT'?
Weren't they?
I wish we could ask the thousands of Jews were burned alive in their synagogues rather then convert to Christianity.
Yes they were...I will see this movie.
Yes, but they were bloodthirsty and rapacious on our side -- not at all like the bloodthirsty and rapacious Moslems.
If that was "Christianity," Fahrenheit 911 is a documentary.
These morons are propagandists for Al Qaeda and like-minded terrorists. Make the "crusaders" out to be the villains of history (they were not) and let it seem like Muslims then and now are merely concerned to keep evil "crusaders" out of their lands. Let's just forget that it was ISLAM that violently overran much of the known world from 800 to 1600 AD and that the nasty crusaders were merely trying to salvage the Christian holy lands from the Islamic onslaught.
ok so it's a review....
I will probably still see it in the theatre and then we will see what I think...
movies with supposed Liberal messages don't really seem to affect anything.
On your side. Not on mine.
Orlando Bloom, on the set of "Lord of the Rings", was bashing my mission in Iraq.
Liam Neeson has made similar statements in entertainment mags.
I figure that Irons is in that camp as well.
Yours is the statement that made no sense.
Indeed many of them were. You don't kill the entire Muslim and Jewish population of Jerusalem after you capture it, and in a later crusade destroy, plunder, and rape your way through (Orthodox Christian) Constantinope without being bloodthirsty and rapacious.
but it still happened...
a lot of things happened back then that Christians today would think barbaric.....
Neeson made his contempt for orthodox Christianity very clear in his interviews leading up to the release of Kinsey.
Well, duh. The Western Crusaders of 1205 were indeed as bloodthirsty and rapacious as the Wahabists of 2005. The difference is, obviously, that Western Civilization (mostly) got over it.
There is nothing about Orlando Bloom in the text. Why am that?
So from their statements you go to the tired 'I hate Hollywood' mantra? That's what I was talking about. Especially considering those three are not Americans.
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