Review of Kingdom of Heaven

Don't read this unless you have seen the movie.

I liked the movie. It was an exiting story with good writing, excellent acting, and farily realistic. I give it an 8. What makes this movie good is it's adherence to a kind of reality that does not ask for much suspension of disbelief. Of course it is historical fiction.

The cast of characters:
Balian count of Ibelin: A great guy, altruistic
Guy D'Lusignan: A nasty guy
Sybilla: Sister of king Baldwin IV: Sexy and unpredictable engaged to La-scumbag d'Lusignan
King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem: Suffering from leperosy, a great guy, noble and wise
Saladin: A great guy, noble and wise

Hollywood has this medieval stereotype that it can't seem to shake. Instead of illustrating the subtle complexities of feudal obligations, tribal animosity, and the intense ritualism of all aspects of life, we are fed a predigested goop that resembles the middleages as about as much as a box of animal crakers resembles the serengeti. The medieval world, if ever portrayed for what it was, would make for a far more interesting movie. Religion was taken with deadly seriousness by most Christians and Muslims. Hollywood tends to make all religion either cartoonishly righteous or cartoonishly evil. It was an age where many Christian knights had more incommon with Osama Bin Laden than Christ. Hollywood has trouble handling that level of religious extremism; it makes Dr Dobbson seem aetheistic. In the middleages you could have a knight as good as Balian, who was worldly and wise, and also brandishing an intense religious extemism and capacity to back that extemism up with terrible violence. The will of God was not an abstraction in the 12th century. The only place you would be likely to find anything approaching modern religion would be in the Monastaries or Universities, with men like Aquinas, or Abelard, over even Bernard of Clairveux.

I am also kind of tired of the cliche' about paupers rising to lords. That kind of thing did not happen. And the truth behind Balian, that I will talk about in a moment, would not have made for a bad movie. Yet the cliche' hangs on; like dinning while wearing armor and brandishing weapons. That would have been a severe no-no and breach of courtly manners. Dispite all this I liked the movie very much and would see it again.

The real story:
Balian of Ibelin was not a blacksmith. Balian and his brother Baldwin ran Ibelin from 1177 until 1187. Baldwin gave Ibelin to Balian so he (Baldwin) could be lord of Ramala. Balian supported King Raymond of Tripoli as Regent of Jerusalem while Baldwin IV was still a child and unable to rule, so Balien was older than King Baldwin. He was a foe of Guy d'Lusignan. Balian did defend Jerusalem before Saladin took the city on the 4th of July 1187. He negotiated the surrender of the city. However he did not leave the Holy Land. He continued fighting Saladin until October of 1187. Then he left to Tripoli. He supported Guy d'Lusignan in Lusignan's bid to maintain his kingship of Cyprus. Balian then became an advisor to Henry II of Champagne, another king of Jerusalem (who sort of ruled in absentia). In 1192 Balian helped negotiate peace between Richard I and Saladin ending the 3rd Crusade. He died in 1193.

On the whole the movie had the right flavor. I wish there had been a little explanation as to why certain groups of crusaders were at odds with other groups of cursaders. For instance you have all these groups of knights with certain heraldic devices on their tunics. Balian is wearing a tunic with the Maltese cross. The templars were done up well with white tunics and red crosses. The warriors in black tunics were the Knights Hospitallers. And those in blue were the Knights of Jerusalem. Most Jerusalem bibles still use the Heraldic Jerusalem crusader cross on the cover. I wish that Guy d'Lusignan had not been such a cardboard cut out bad guy. He had reasons to want the crown and to subdue Saladin. They were not noble reasons, or even ethical ones. But it would have made him a more nasty villain. What he and others wanted was to capture Damascus, a wealthier city than Jerusalem. He was already Count of Lusignan in France, King of Cypruss, and head of the army of Jerusalem. He wanted more power. The Lusignans and the Angivens hated each other, there was no love lost between he and Richard I.

Now lets make a movie about Richards mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Sex, scandel, violence! yummy!