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71
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70
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93
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27
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47
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54
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93
WALL-E
82
Dark Knight, The
79
Iron Man
78
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
73
Kung Fu Panda
72
Ghost Town
71
Tropic Thunder
71
Horton Hears a Who!
70
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
65
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
64
Wanted
64
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
64
Pineapple Express
63
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, The
62
Burn After Reading
62
Body of Lies
61
Incredible Hulk, The
60
Traitor
57
Flash of Genius
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
55
House Bunny, The
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
54
Express, The
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
53
Rocker, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
51
Step Brothers
49
Hancock
49
Family That Preys, The
47
Swing Vote
47
RocknRolla
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
46
Lakeview Terrace
45
Blindness
43
Meet Dave
43
Death Race
43
Eagle Eye
42
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
39
Nights in Rodanthe
37
Miracle at St. Anna
36
Space Chimps
36
Righteous Kill
36
Fly Me to the Moon
36
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
35
Mirrors
34
Happening, The
34
My Best Friend's Girl
31
Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The
27
Women, The
26
Babylon A.D.
24
Bangkok Dangerous
24
Love Guru, The
23
American Carol, An
15
Disaster Movie
15
College
xx
City of Ember
xx
Quarantine
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

85
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xx
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80
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xx
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75
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52
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86
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74
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73
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55
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77
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72
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45
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57
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71
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72
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83
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83
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84
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79
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xx
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61
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xx
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54
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66
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67
XXY
55
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39
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75
Young@Heart
89
Man on Wire
86
Momma's Man
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Edge of Heaven, The
85
Alexandra
84
Up the Yangtze
83
U2 3D
83
Trouble the Water
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
81
Ballast
80
Encounters at the End of the World
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
Order of Myths, The
80
Moving Midway
79
Visitor, The
78
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
78
Last Mistress, The
77
Pool, The
75
Young@Heart
75
Boy A
74
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
74
Mongol
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
73
Obscene
73
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
72
Secret, A
72
Priceless
72
Transsiberian
72
I Served the King of England
71
To the Limit
71
I.O.U.S. A
71
Roman de gare
70
Love Songs
68
Happy-Go-Lucky
67
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
67
XXY
67
Jellyfish
66
Elegy
66
American Teen
66
When Did You Last See Your Father?
65
August Evening
65
Flow: For Love of Water
64
Brideshead Revisited
64
Duchess, The
64
Fall, The
64
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
63
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
63
Appaloosa
63
Man Named Pearl, A
63
Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
63
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
62
Kabluey
62
Baghead
62
Girls Rock!
62
Mister Foe
61
Bustin' Down the Door
61
Wackness, The
61
Brick Lane
61
Red
59
Beautiful Losers
58
Save Me
57
Towelhead
57
Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, The
57
Good Dick
57
Sixty Six
56
Bottle Shock
56
Then She Found Me
55
Year of the Fish
55
Religulous
55
Bra Boys
55
Sukiyaki Western Django
55
Battle in Seattle
55
Ping Pong Playa
54
Hamlet 2
54
CSNY: Déjà Vu
54
What We Do Is Secret
53
Humboldt County
53
Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert
52
Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived
52
Elsa & Fred
52
Last Stop for Paul
51
Savage Grace
49
Children of Huang Shi, The
47
Before the Rains
47
Choke
46
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
46
My Mexican Shivah
45
Shoot on Sight
44
Henry Poole is Here
41
Cthulhu
40
America the Beautiful
40
Igor
39
Forgiveness
39
Young People F**king
37
Forever Strong
33
Elite Squad
31
Hounddog
28
Fireproof
26
Everybody Wants to Be Italian
25
Hell Ride
16
Surfer, Dude
xx
Phoebe in Wonderland
xx
All of Us
xx
Whaledreamers
xx
Ashes of Time Redux
xx
Breakfast with Scot
xx
Bachna Ae Haseeno
xx
Choose Connor
xx
W.
xx
Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips
xx
Nights and Weekends
xx
Goal II: Living the Dream
xx
Beer for My Horses
xx
Just Buried
xx
Lower Learning
xx
Call and Response
xx
Billy: The Early Years
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Kingdom of Heaven
20th Century Fox Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong violence and epic warfare
Starring
Orlando Bloom,
Eva Green,
Brendan Gleeson,
Jeremy Irons,
Liam Neeson,
Alexander Siddig,
David Thewlis,
and
Jouko Ahola
An epic adventure about a common man who finds himself thrust into a decades-long war, a stranger in a strange land. He serves a doomed king, falls in love with an exotic forbidden queen, and rises to the knighthood. Ultimately, he must protect the people of Jerusalem from overwhelming forces while striving to keep a fragile peace. (20th Century Fox)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Drama
|
Romance
|
War
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
William Monahan
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Ridley Scott
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 11, 2005
Video: October 11, 2005
Theatrical: May 6, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
145 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / Spain / UK |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A gargantuan epic, a historical adventure-drama of overwhelming visual grandeur.

88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Bloom finally comes into his own as a man here, somberly thoughtful and melancholic. The elfin archer of "The Lord of the Rings" and the trivial boy-toy of "Troy" have been forgotten.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Better than "Gladiator" -- deeper, more thoughtful, more about human motivation and less about action.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Its concept is gutsy, its script is literate and intelligent, its visuals and cinematic craftsmanship are mouth-dropping, and its vision of the insanity of various religions vying to dominate the real estate of the Holy Land comes through with great power.

80
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
In its depiction of a fleeting, but nevertheless factual, peace in the Middle East, Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven may seem a more quixotic Hollywood fantasy than all six Star Wars movies lumped together.

80
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Genuinely spectacular and historically quite respectable, Ridley Scott's latest epic is at its strongest in conveying the savagery spawned by fanaticism.

80
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Fulfills the requirements of grand-scale moviemaking while serving as a timely reminder that in the conflict between Christianity and Islam it was the Christians who picked the first fight.

80
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Full of astonishments, not the least of which are its ideas.

80
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Scott and company have gotten so accomplished at re-creating history that the results have a welcome offhanded quality, making them spectacular without seeming to be showing off.

78
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
The story's parallels with the present are sometimes inescapable, as when Saladin's fireballs catapulted at Balian's castle strike an eerie resemblance to the "shock and awe" of the U.S.-led coalition's initial assault on Iraq.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Screenwriter William Monahan has fashioned an intelligent and highly topical epic. Director Ridley Scott has brought it home with banners flying.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Scott's cast is like a grand orchestra with various performers filling the roles of instruments: Thewlis a wise, ironic oboe; Neeson a stout cello; Norton a slightly battered flute. As it happens, the piece they're playing is a piano concerto and the keyboard -- that is, Bloom -- isn't big enough to match.

75
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A rousing, politically correct, Muslim-sympathetic, $140 million take on the Crusades.

75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Odd as it is to say, Kingdom of Heaven loses its momentum the more Balian gets religion.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Kingdom of Heaven may have problems, but it delivers.

70
Dallas Observer
Bill Gallo
So, if you want to see this loud but rather ordinary epic, don't expect its tricked-up cultural and theological messages to carry much water. For entertainment value, it's hard to beat the climactic siege of Jerusalem, a Ridley Scott-perfect half-hour that matches anything in "Troy" or "Gladiator" for sheer, bloody, helmet-bashing mayhem.

70
Time
Richard Corliss
The battle skirmishes here mix sudden violence with slow-motion artistry. The attractive cast can sell an obsession or articulate a conundrum with equal fervor.

70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Thoughtful and impressively mounted.

70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Massoud plays Saladin magnetically, and his arrival only illustrates how many opportunities Kingdom misses. Another, better movie would have made him the focus.

67
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Scott, working from a script by William Monahan, is so busy balancing our sympathies, making sure no one gets offended, that he has made a pageant of war that would have gotten a thumbs-up from Eleanor Roosevelt.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
But if the film disappoints on an intellectual level, at least it doesn't skimp on pageantry. This is, without question, one of the most beautifully crafted, visually thrilling war pictures ever made -- a painterly spectacle that leaves you looking for Caravaggio's name in the end credits.

63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
It's hard to say with assurance whether the flaw is in Bloom's performance or in Monahan's politically correct conception of Balian, precociously secular for a Crusader.

63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
What sucks the wind out of the movie's sails is the vacuum at its core.

63
Premiere
Peter Debruge
Although Scott seems to be making a point about both parties' ongoing feud for Jerusalem , the movie seems more like a classic Western than a contemporary political allegory.

63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
For all its scale, grandeur, historical context and political brass, "Kingdom" is no more compelling a period drama than last year's "Alexander."

60
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
The movie does what any self-respecting politician would do: sidestep the issues, soft-pedal mortal costs, talk a fat game, and divert your attention away from history with exercises in spectacle and power.

60
Empire
Ian Nathan
A frustratingly thin epic. You're left wanting more exposition, more character development, the tidying up of loose ends.

60
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
One imagined that a movie about the Crusades would be gallant and mad; one feared that it might stoke some antiquated prejudice. But who could have dreamed that it would produce this rambling, hollow show about a boy?

60
Newsweek
David Ansen
Fails to rouse any passion. A potentially great subject is frittered away, though this being a Scott movie, there's style to spare.

60
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
A handful of nifty battle scenes and some decent performances aren't quite enough to make Kingdom memorable.

50
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Scott's ravishing visual style, characterized by a fetishistic attention to surface detail and unrelenting beauty, can work wonders with big subjects, but this is also a director who needs actors powerful enough to shoulder narrative and emotional extremes.

50
USA Today
Mike Clark
Dramatically, even a persuasive supporting cast gets Heaven only so far.

50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Bottom line: Kingdom of Heaven is the most exciting action-adventure yarn so far this year. Just don't expect anything deeper.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The movie espouses a kind of Unitarian ecumenical egalitarianism that has about as much to do with medieval times as quantum physics. No one should be offended except -- of course -- those who like movies that excite the mind as well as the pulse.

50
Slate
David Edelstein
I'd have a lot more respect for Scott if he were actually the virtuoso he pretends to be. "Gladiator" had lousy, disjunctive action, and Kingdom of Heaven is even more maladroit.

50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Ultimately, despite striving mightily to give everyone a fair shake, the film kindled the ire of conservative Christians and Muslims anyway.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
A mostly lumbering, occasionally rousing epic that walks a bizarre line between historical fact and Hollywood wishful thinking.

40
Wall Street Journal
Joanne Kaufmann
While there's gore by the gallon, inventiveness is in short supply.
40
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
This is muddled and oppressive storytelling (the script is by William Monahan) dotted with elaborate but weightless battle sequences.

30
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
To introduce an archetype like this to western audiences -- as the world weathers culturally and religiously demonizing times -- may have been worth this whole flawed movie. Too bad the story didn't just start with him.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 199 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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