While watching Kingdom of Heaven, I was reminded of so many other epic war movies: Troy, Gladiator, and even The Lord of the Rings, at some level. Seeing as how this film was directed by Ridley Scott, I shouldn’t be too surprised that the battle scenes seemed so similar to Gladiator. In this movie, Balian, a blacksmith, follows his father to Jerusalem, after his child dies and his wife, in her grief, commits suicide. In Jerusalem, Balian is thrown into the fragile politics of the city and also the war between the Christians and the Muslims. When his father dies, Balian inherits the responsibility of commanding an army and protecting a city.
Rating: **+