Kingdom of Heaven

Fearing another King-Arthur-esque episode (ie not seeing the latest probably dodgy medievalish flick when it first came out, then being too scared by the reviews to pay good potentially chocolate-buying money on it at the video shop) I went to see Kingdom of Heaven this weekend. It's amazing how much difference the correct movie-going companion makes, and having someone who comments in the same way about similar things does make it so much more fun. So, my impressions:

Orlando Bloom - pretty, was at least trying to act, and mercifully only had a bad attempte at facial hair rather than the chest-wig I had been warned about.
Siege weapons and seige tactics in general - I'm sure it's a bad sign that I find siege weapons sexy. Having said that, this film had some damn sexy ones. And I got through the siege tactics without yelling at either side to be sensible, which is a Good Thing and a contrast to most other films.
Costume - men's costume generally good (always nice to see coifs), also (from what I know of it) the armour. It does appear, however that the pink shirts for boys phenomenon is working back in time (see Orlando in one of the well digging scenes). If all you are wearing is an undershirt, undershirts are white goddamit! And on that note, the day a main male character wears braise and hose rather than wussy and incorrect trousers I shall simultaneously have a heart attack and start to worship them. As for the women's costume - well, I'll confine my rant to suggesting that the princess of a European Crusader Kingdom doesn't need to look like an extra-cheap-for-you bellydancer. It's not they didn't know better: the poor suffering refugees in the exodus from Jerusalem were dressed correctly. Now I live in dread of the amount of henna and jangly gold coins that will show up at the next event.
The Poncing. The Large Amounts of (Unnecessary and Anatomically Incorrect) Blood Spatters. You can't say they didn't have fun.

But the supposed point to the film, the whole issues of religion, reaaly didn't work. When the main character starts off by stabbing and burning alive the local priest, you can probably guess that a meaningful engagement with faith and religion is not on the cards. While the film did make its gestures in the direction of interfaith comparisons (the whole 'god wills it' and variants became rather repeditive), the characters that the film implied we were meant to like and admire were those without faith, contrasted with the Evil Fundamentalist of Either Side and the Self-Interested Bishop Who Is Only In It For The Perks. In some ways it might be easy to sit back and say, yes, to have a space where all faiths are tolerated and no-one really believes in them anyway is the way to go. But the failure to try and understand what a person of faith might do in this situation was ultimately, for me, the failure of this film.

But having said that - Blood! Gore! Siege Engines! Go and have fun, and don't expect much more. I'm now off home to dinner and costume drama on the ABC. Got to love Sundays.