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Ardress t1_ixq859v wrote

Yo what? It's inanely stupid, as unhistorical as a film can get, and interminably boring. It's a bad historical picture and it's a horribly mediocre film in general. I don't get how someone can watch that farce and think, "yes this is a 10/10 film." Balian is such an undynamic and unengaging character played by an actor who is just not cut out to carry a 3 hour film. The points on religion would be superficial to a high schooler, even if they weren't deeply misplaced in a film set in the 1180s. A knight hospitaller expressing a humanist view of religion is just hilarious. And the Templar characters are played like absolute cartoons. Guy is comically evil, Raynald is literally insane, prancing around just repeating his own name. The film acts like has gravitas then cuts to Brendan Gleeson climbing the walls of his cell. Ridiculous. It's also just shot and edited in a really disorienting way. Things just happen scene to scene. Even if they technically follow from one another, each scene still feels almost random in what's happening. That feeling isn't helped by people just randomly being where the director decided the scene should take place. Why is Balian in the middle of nowhere when he gets attacked by the Templars? Fuck you I guess. Why is he just in the middle of a random alley when attacked by Guy? Who cares I guess. There's no establishment.

It's not an awful picture by any means but it's so deeply flawed in every way.

Edit: Also, there is hardly any development from Balian grieving his dead wife and child to fucking the king's sister. The only conflict he has doing that is the morality of the adultery. What's the point of the dead family if it doesn't actually affect his actions? Likewise, after running away, he never cares again about murdering Michael Sheen. So, again, what's the point of a plot line that doesn't actually affect the character's actions or feelings? Balian just acts good and hyper competent at all times, beginning to end with no change. It might be worth it if he were written as an interesting dude but despite being knowledgeable about fucking everything, he has the wisdom of a toddler and just acts dull the whole film.

−8

dinin70 t1_ixqpop9 wrote

I love this movie, despite its inaccuracies.

There are some flaws. I concur. What me rage the most about this movie is when he wakes up on the beach and finds a horse, attached to the ship remnants…

Like… WTF!!!!!! Is that SuperHorse or what?

Another point that made me raise my eyebrows was when he said to Baudouin that they should build the walls of Jerusalem like stars. Which something that was invented several centuries later (17-18-19th century IIRC, could be wrong though). Ok, he was engineer as stated in the movie, but that’s seem to me a bit too much.

That being said.

  1. While Templars lack a bit of subtlety. Guy de Lusignan, and especially Renault Le Châtillon, were real assholes, with Renault close to being a psycho. So the movie has a point there. Though, I would have loved the movie to give a more nuanced perspective than a very black and white « Hospitallers / Knights of the Holy Sepulchre good; Templars bad ».
  2. About Balian. While Balian was of noble descent, raised in Palestinia, the movie wants to make a point about religion and acting with your soul and hearth. And when you do, you raise yourself above the others. Making Balian a smith (ex soldier), emphasised this perspective. And I’m ok with that.
  3. I used to also think Bloom didn’t have the epicness to match with epicness of the setup. But after discussions with others I joined their perspective: see point 2. Putting a Aragorn wouldn’t have fit and wouldn’t have given the same impression as in point 2

With this said, you may dislike the movie as much as you can. None can judge your tastes.

2