Kingdom of Heaven

Starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Edward Norton, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, and Brendan Gleeson, Kingdom of Heaven is a brilliant movie idea. The story of a nowhere man (Bloom) in a nowhere land of poverty (who just lost his wife to suicide when the baby died in childbirth), who finds out his father is a baron and joins him in the crusades in Jerusalem with King Baldwin (Edward Norton), the leper. Mostly he wants to go to Jerusalem to have his wife's sins forgiven and be reconnected to God. He can't seem to find that peace, but while he's there, he becomes a great friend to the king. Our hero falls in love with the kings sister (Eva Green), who is married to the film's bad guy, and yadda yadda yadda. The king dies and the kingdom is left to the war maniac, the sister's husband. Yay, Knights Templar war where there's no water. They lose, but Bloom is safely back in Jerusalem and helps defend the city against Saladin and his armies. Big battle. See the movie and find out how it ends.
Kingdom of Heaven is a great idea. Unfortunately, to make this film a decent length, the editors had to cut a lot of plot. They didn't think it was worth pulling a Lord of the Rings-length video. So there's a bunch of fantastic ideas that would be perfectly strung together if there were also an intact plot. Since it's a war movie, the makers of this film did a very good job with the boom-clank (aka. Fighting).
I liked the movie a lot, but would have been far more pleased if there were more plot. (tee hee. Rhyme). Good fun, though. 3 1/2 stars out of 5.