Good Comments on 'Kingdom of Heaven' Movie

QUOTE: "Teen audiences who cheered on Legolas as he slaughtered hundreds by the bow in the vast battles of Middle Earth are invited in Kingdom of Heaven to conclude that nothing is worth fighting for. Bloom's character, Balian, surveying a massacre in the Holy Land, declares, 'If this is the kingdom of heaven, then God can keep it.' Sir Ridley [Scott] explains: 'Balian is an agnostic, just like me.' Yet there were no agnostics in the 12th century. That might sound ridiculous, but the word agnostic is a 19th-century invention (1869), just like the word homosexual (1892). There were sex acts between men in the Middle Ages, just as men and women doubted their faith, but neither fact defined a personal ideology. Sir Ridley's problem is that he links agnosticism and tolerance as joint forces of good in his film, and he makes true believers—either Muslim or Christian—baddies. That is an impossible historical pill to swallow. ... A more realistic view of history requires less retrospective fantasy and more brain work. It means forcing our heads round to see what motivated men and women centuries ago." —British opinion columnist Christopher Howse in his critique of the historical inaccuracies in Kingdom of Heaven [opinion.telegraph.co.uk, 5/5/05]

QUOTE: "The idea in the middle of [Kingdom of Heaven] is unhistorical and deeply inaccurate. Bloom succeeds by rejecting God, but it just wouldn't work. If he stood up and drew those conclusions he would have been burned as an agent of the devil. This is a nice 21st-century idea, that if you remove religion you remove extremism ... but in the 12th century, it's not a runner." —Dr. Jonathan Phillips, lecturer in Crusading History at Royal Holloway University in London [Reuters, 5/5/05]