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metromix.chicagotribune.com - : Based on a lesser-known episode of the Crusades, Scott's new film traces the rise of a fictionalized French knight, Balian (Orlando Bloom), during an uneasy peace between the European rulers of Jerusalem and the Saracen general Saladin, a lull that ends violently at the film's climax. The movie treads through a minefield of cultural-political controversies—including the current schisms between Christianity and Islam—to craft a gargantuan epic, a historical adventure-drama of overwhelming visual grandeur. more...
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www.boston.com - : First things first. ''Kingdom of Heaven,'' director Ridley Scott's return to the sword-and-sandals genre he revived with ''Gladiator,'' is nowhere near as entertaining as that 2000 film. It's also nowhere near as awful as the inert bores that followed ''Gladiator'' into theaters -- the wooden ''Troy'' and the demented ''Alexander.'' It is, instead, a mostly lumbering, occasionally rousing epic that walks a bizarre line between historical fact and Hollywood wishful thinking. more...
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Critic Reviews
