Just came back from seeing Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.
After the success of his previous historical epic, Gladiator, I was looking forward to this one, and being (at last!) a film about the Crusades, made me look forward to it more so.
So why did I leave the cinema bitterly disappointed? Well here a few reasons why..

1) The first hour of the film was too slow to the point of being boring, it picked up towards the end during the final battle for Jerusalem, which unfortunately reminded me a little too much like the battle of Helm's Deep - we've seen it all before.

2) Orlando Bloom. Need I say anymore, as always his acting was awful, he should not have been cast as lead in this film. I had a real problem believing this unmanly pretty boy could lead and influence an army. It was all too transparent that Ridley Scott's decision to cast him was based on the power of the almighty $ in an attempt to reel in Mr Bloom's female fan base.

3) I don’t know if Mr Scott and co wanted to avoid a fatwa, but the notion of a Crusades film released in this day of (relevant) age with all the sensitivities and tensions between the West and the Islamic nations that pusses out to political correctness is ludicrous. I don’t know if it was me but I couldn’t help but notice how the Christians were portrayed as ignorant, headstrong buffoons while the Muslim army always as noble and almost saintly. That PISSED me off!

One comment from the Aintitcoolnews.com 'Talkback' sums up my feelings perfectly:

This movie has been thoroughly ripped apart by several people in the know, including several English professors and Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch. It's basically 'Osama bin Laden's version of the Crusades' and I understand from Scott himself that he purposely set out to paint a pretty picture of the Muslim hordes attacking Jerusalem. What do you expect when you let CAIR review the script? The fact is that the Crusades were defensive wars fought to protect Christian lands against Islamic Jihad. Scott lies when he says there was a 'brotherhood of Muslims, Christians and Jews' that was striving for peace and then the knights fucked it up. It's all just a whitewash of history and propaganda. I will see this stupid movie because of the battle scenes but if you look for truth, look elsewhere.

4) Gladiator. Ridley Scott made a too desperate effort to try to emulate the look and feel of his former historical box office smash that he failed miserably. This film isn’t even in the same league for so many reasons.

5)My experience watching this in the cinema was RUINED by a drunk and boisterous teenage crowd, but deciding to go to Ilford Cineworld, I should have known better.
They yelled their way through the movie shouting obscenities at one another and also at the audience who told them to calm down. They even started to smoke in the cinema midway through the film. Cineworld’s staff did NOTHING, I complained to the manager right after the end credits began (I missed the final scene thanks to their distraction) and all I received were two complementary tickets (like I’m going to go THERE again!) and the explanation that it was down to the area the cinema was in (Ilford) that undesirables were frequenting there, and that their trouble making was a reoccurring problem.

Should have stayed at home!