So last evening I had the opportunity to enjoy Ridley Scott's latest, Kingdom of Heaven. As usual one must enjoy Ridley's nod to the graphic gore of the East Asian cinema, particularly the splattering of blood, the slow, then fast motion of the war scenes (which looked eerily like out of Lord of the Rings--Peter Jackson has certainly set the standard for all war movies from now on), and the familiar opening of some snowy part of Europe in the dead of winter.
The scriptwriter also decided to make some commentary on man's pursuit for power in the name of religion, and making all things fair, treated the Islamic and Christian aspects of the movie with good balance. It's pretty funny, when the audience actually roots for Saladin to kill one of the major villains of the movie. Although the premise of the whole movie is pretty simplistic: one or two terribly greedy people in positions of power abuses their power for glory, not caring about the people they serve, and thus sow wars of devastating magnitude. I suppose if you are looking for allegory, besides a pretty enjoyable film, Scott does comment on current times as well. Personally, I could see it again for Orlando Bloom.
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